Hurry Up and Save Me
by Conan15
Summary: New Years Eve is a time of new beginnings for everyone, will it bring change for Hikaru and Haruhi too? That is if the two can deal with Kaoru's inability to accept the perfect girl for him, survive Renge's decorating, and one of Kyoya's parties. This New Year is sure to be coming in with a bang!
1. Staying Late at Work

**I do not own Ouran High School or any of its characters. This is my first time writing for this show too so forgive me if any of them are out of character. This is AU obviously so I know that its not canon but Hikaru x Haruhi should definitely have been!**

Chapter 1: Staying Late at Work

Despite being remarkably uptight as a teenager, the mature Kyoya had the ability to throw the best parties in total exorbitant Gatsby style. His wife Renge probably was the main catalyst for ameliorating the man as she helped him to fully metamorphose after Tamaki had first made him aware of his potential to do great things despite being the third son. His house not too far outside of Osaka was a lot like Gatsby's in fact, Renge loved the book and the movie and Kyoya was successful enough to make her dream come true. He had mellowed out quite a bit since his success gaining his father's respect and half the company, the better half of the company since one of his brothers had chosen to instead have his own internet start up and the other had proven to be less adept at best when it came to everything but the medical side of the business. Hikaru was only mulling this over in his mind as he walked through the train station with his suitcase in one hand and his phone pressed to his ear en route to meet his girlfriend at one of Kyoya's gargantuan parties. Normally Hikaru would have driven himself in his blue Ferrari 590 GTO; however he knew that the bullet train would be faster especially with today's traffic. Old Hikaru would have ordered people around and gotten his servants to drive him in a limo and he still could afford to do that but his girlfriend had made him realize that putting money into his business was a much better idea than wasting it away on flings.

"How long until you get here Hika?" His girlfriend asked with a slight panicky tone in her voice, "Renge and her decorating is driving me insane, at least with you here I can escape using the excuse of you and Kaoru kidnapping me." Holding the phone further away from his face, Hikaru chuckled to himself as he stood in line to get on the train. She could be so cute when she was annoyed but at the present moment he was a little more than annoyed with himself that he had to stay an extra day in Kyoto to work on the Hitachiin Company finances. Kaoru got to leave early with Hikaru's girlfriend since he was the artistic half of the company and got all his work done and, in doing so, left Hikaru with twice as much paperwork and numbers to crunch on New Years Eve Day. Due to that unforeseen unfortunate series of events, Hikaru was hard pressed to think of a time he was more irritated with his slightly younger twin brother.

"I miss you too but Haruhi, you always hated it when Kaoru and I kidnapped you." Hikaru pointed out with a smirk and a light chuckle. He knew how much pain Renge must be putting Haruhi in since she, after all, hated dealing with frilly stuff like decorating for parties. Sliding his ticket through the gate with a flick of his wrist and a smile at the worker who proceeded to wave him through allowing him to drag along his luggage as he entered the terminal of the station on the side that the bullet train from Kyoto to Osaka came through.

"I never said that I missed you, you idiot." Haruhi pointed out suddenly distracted from her original point earning a loving smile on Hikaru's end of the line. She had become as easy to read as a book for Hikaru over the past few years yet it still surprised her when he could understand what she was feeling despite her having not said it.

"I could hear it in between the lines of what you said." Hikaru explained as he continued to smile lovingly, "I should be there in about an hour; this is the bullet train after all. Think you can last until then? Remind Kaoru that he needs to be at the station to pick me up in forty-five minutes." His train chose that moment to pull into the station and honk its horn causing him to lose her response in the onslaught of sudden noise. Stepping into the Green Car, he heard her hum as she awaited his reply and sighed as he realized that he had missed everything Haruhi had said. "What?"

"Damn train must have just pulled in. I said that Kaoru and his most recent girlfriend Matsuyo went off someone hence why I'm stuck here helping Renge." Haruhi repeated herself louder this time and sounding annoyed more so with Renge and the train than him, thankfully. Not that his girlfriend had a temper, he did, but that he didn't want to annoy her unless he was teasing her, that was the only time he was okay with bothering her. Sitting down in an open seat, Hikaru felt the train propel forward as her words hit him, Kaoru had forgotten. His own brother had chosen to go make out with some random bitch rather than pick up his twin or help out his twin's girlfriend.

"That idiot forgot about me! What a bastard!" Hikaru cursed feeling what had been happiness at seeing Haruhi in less than an hour transforming into annoyance with his twin brother. Forcing himself to calm down, a brilliant idea suddenly came to him that made Kaoru's short term memory loss forgivable for now at least, "Do you want a quick escape from Renge?"

"Of course!" Haruhi exclaimed happily, she would do anything to get away from Renge and Hikaru always had a plethora of ideas when it came to escape plans.

"Do you want to come pick me up from the station? You can drive Kaoru's car since you both rode up together. I doubt that he and Sato-san made it off the premise." He knew he was angry about the way that Kaoru let girls like Matsuyo in for a matter of a month or so and then left her for another chick just like the last. It especially bothered Hikaru that the perfect girl for Kaoru had been there all along in the form of his best friend Murai.

"You don't like Sato Matsuyo?" She asked rhetorically and heard Hikaru growl under his breath which he attempted to hide in a cough and failed miserably. The mathematically minded twin knew that she had, over the period of six years, become more of a romantic as a side effect of dating him since fourth year and because of this his attempts to disguise his emotional outbursts made her love him a little more every time. It was one of the qualities he loved the most about her. "I know you want Kaoru and Murai to be together however your thinker twin will come around to the idea eventually if it's meant to be." Hikaru sighed in resignation and he knew she was smiling in response after making him feel a little better. "On another note, I can definitely pick you up but you have to drive us back because I don't want to drive in the traffic."

"That would be great!" The elder Hitachiin twin replied twisting his button down sleeve until he could see the Rolex on his wrist. "By now I only have thirty minutes until I get there so I would suggest leaving now."

"Oh I was already out the door the second you mentioned picking you up." The law student replied with a girlish giggle that Haruhi only felt comfortable enough to use around Hikaru. Chuckling himself he envisioned in his mind's eye how concentrated Haruhi looked when she drove and how she was still enthralled by the marvels of Kaoru and Hikaru's matching Bluetooth systems in their cars. "The weather is supposed to be stormy early tomorrow morning." She commented in a peculiar change of discussion, it was only unusual however if you didn't know Haruhi. Despite her courageous front the woman was terrified of the sight of lightning and the sound of thunder.

"I won't leave your side tonight." He promised with every ounce of his body serious as a heart attack. "In fact, we can leave Kyoya's party right after midnight and go back to the hotel then so we're not out during the storm itself. Will that work for you?" By the time he finished he was blushing a bit, even after dating her for six years he was still as embarrassed about his feelings as he had been the first time he plucked up the courage to ask her out. His blush deepened when he remembered that he had only gotten one room with one bed which wasn't a bad thing, quite the contrary in his opinion; however he could just hear Tamaki yelling at him for taking away Haruhi's innocence even now.

"Thanks Hika, have I mentioned lately that you are an amazing boyfriend?" That harmless comment startled him, Haruhi was never so affectionate over the phone or really ever; her actions spoke louder than her words, always.

"Please tell me that Renge hasn't let you have any of the sake, champagne, or wine." Hikaru managed weakly, he did not want a drunk Haruhi picking him up or even driving. Her answering giggle simultaneously made him want to kiss her and made him worry.

"No worries Hika, I am merely ecstatic just to be away from Renge and decorations and everything else for a bit." Sighing in relief at this development, he knew he should let her go and she must have been thinking along the same lines. "Well I'm just about in the city limits for Osaka so I'm going to let you get a few moments of rest, alright?"

"See you in a few Haruhi, I love you." Hikaru replied remembering Kaoru's advice from all those years ago about voicing your feelings; it sure had helped him throughout the years when it came to Haruhi.

"I love you too, you idiot." Haruhi ended the call with a click and a still smiling Hikaru as he fingered the small velvet box in the pocket of his winter jacket. Pulling it out he popped it open to reveal a ring with a modest diamond, well modest in his opinion was going to be excessive in hers but no matter. All that mattered to Hikaru was if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him and he prayed to God that Haruhi would say yes.

**Thanks for reading! Leave a review if you liked it and wait in excited anticipation for the next chapter. I'll try to update as fast as I possibly can. Thanks again!**


	2. Otoosan

Chapter 2: Otoosan

"Who is that big rock for mister?" A young boy asked quizzically as he sat down beside Hikaru and nodded his head towards the ring. As the kid observed him behind huge round glass that magnified his blue eyes, Hikaru smiled wishing he and Kaoru had that kind of fearlessness as children. Blushing slightly, Hikaru looked down at the ring himself before replying.

"It's not that big!" He defended himself feeling slightly offended that even a kid knew it was a rather large stone. "It's for my girlfriend who is the most amazing and brilliant girl working on her law degree on full scholarship at the Faculty of Law at Kyoto University. I'm just hoping she will want to spend the rest of her life with a stupid finances guy like me." In years past Hikaru might have simply shrugged the kid off and or snapped at him to mind his own business but letting Haruhi in and Kaoru go had changed him and made him a better man. Not that Kaoru's presence had corrupted him but because he needed to learn how to let people other than his twin brother in.

"I'm sure she will." The younger boy replied sounding far more mature than he looked at first glance, almost like a child but with the brain of an adult.

"Conan-kun?" A teenage girl called whilst searching for the boy, presumably the aforementioned Conan, who was sitting beside him. "Conan! You were going to make us miss our stop in Osaka! Don't run away from us like that again okay?"

"Gomenasi* Ran-neechan!" He apologized as she took his hand and the kid turned to Hikaru, "Good luck with your girlfriend!"

"Gomenasi* sir." His sister apologized with a deep bow as he shook it off with a wave of his hand, a winning smile and a goodbye to the little kid. The two walked off down the train just as the loud speaker announced that they were ten minutes away from Osaka station. Closing his eyes, Hikaru continued to finger the velvet box that was back in his jacket pocket. Within what felt like seconds for his tired body, the announcer's voice crackled through the loud speaker again.

"We are now less than a minute away from Osaka Station, please gather your things and be prepared to disembark." The static filled voice clicked off and Hikaru sighed to himself as he stretched his lean form and heard the resonating crack of his back and neck that had both grown stiff from sitting in the same spot for too long.

"Must've fallen asleep." He muttered to himself as he picked up his bag and, upon feeling the train cease motion, stood up to fix his tan pants and the black button down he wore under his, also black, winter coat. Stepping off the bullet train he looked both ways before turning right towards the staircase that led up to the light of the city above where his Haruhi was waiting for him. His black dress shoes clomped up the stairs with slightly more spring in his step as he thought of his Haruhi. Upon reaching the top he found himself staring at the face of the woman he loved searching the crowd for him. Her angular facial features were framed by her shoulder length bob while her angled bangs fell just above her deep chocolate brown eyes. With pursed lips she was clearly concentrating on looking for his familiar red hair and she was standing on her tip toes to look above the crowd.

"Hika!" She exclaimed with joy as she caught sight of him rushing towards her. Once he reached her, he wrapped his long arms around her as tight as he could causing him to drop his luggage in the process. Giggling a little, Haruhi reciprocated the embrace from her energetic boyfriend and held him tight. Perhaps the excuse of Renge working her to death was really just that an excuse and the real reason for her discomfort was because Hikaru wasn't there with her. But that was just ridiculous thinking on her part, or was it? He was the only one who made her feel whole, made her feel safe, so was it really that ridiculous in reality to feel alone without him there?

"No." Hikaru answered her unspoken question startling her out of her thoughts and causing her to pull away slightly in fear that he had gained the power of telekinesis. "Please don't let go." He begged her, "I felt you start to pull away." His explanation calmed her, she had begun to worry that Hikaru had progressed from simply being able to read her like a book to actually being able to read her mind and that would have been terrifying.

"We do have to go eventually, remember Kyoya's party?" Haruhi reminded him being as sensible as she always was. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of his frown in response, he didn't want to leave and in truth neither did she but she had to be sensible. One of them had to be, because despite Hikaru's brain being logically wired, he sometimes forgot to be realistic leaving her to be the reasonable one in their relationship.

"We could just go back to the hotel and have a night in?" Hikaru whispered in her ear earning a smile and then a sigh as she reminded herself that she had to be reasonable.

"What about Kaoru and the rest?" She pointed out pulling away in time to see his tawny golden eyes harden, Kaoru must not have been the best person to mention she thought to herself too late. Pulling out of the hug completely and breathing out a breath of air through his nose creating a huffing noise as he pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers in a habit he had likely enough picked up from Kyoya whenever he had to deal with Tamaki's antics.

"Let's no talk about Kaoru right now because at the moment he is not exactly my favorite person." He sounded as though he was being logical but Haruhi knew better, he may think repressing his anger was the best way to handle it but he was wrong. That only led to problems later on, which is what her father insisted caused her mother's disease as well as the cancer that had taken him away from his daughter two years prior. Some nights she still woke up crying in grief at his death but Hikaru was always there to comfort her making her a little more grateful for his daily presence in her life.

"You need to talk about it, repressing emotions leads to physical manifestations like disease." Her words would have made most people laugh, refusing to talk about emotions didn't cause cancer but Hikaru knew better, he had been there in the months leading up to Ranka's death and that was proof enough for him. It was during one of those many days when Haruhi had to leave for a moment to use the bathroom or something that Ranka had pulled the red haired young man down by the boy's shirt front so that Hikaru's ear was right by his mouth. In a breathy whisper Ranka, who was acting as serious as a heart attack, ordered Hikaru to marry his little Haruhi and make her happy.

_"Is that your way of giving me permission Ranka?" The twenty-year old Hikaru asked with his weak attempt at cracking a joke failing as the laughter got stuck in his throat. Ranka shook his bald head painfully before placing his other frail hand on Hikaru's._

_ "Call me Dad." Ranka wheezed as he released Hikaru and leaned back into the mountain of pillows that helped him to sit up since he was now too weak to do so on his own._

_ "Of course, Otoosan**."_

***=gomenasi means "sorry" in Japanese**

****=otoosan means "father" in Japanese**

**The memory of Ranka giving permission to Hikaru is in italics to distinguish it from what was going on in the present time. Props to anyone who recognizes the kid and his "sister" from the first part of the chapter if anyone does leave a review and let me know. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy it thus far reader. I'll take any commentary your willing to give the good, bad, or the ugly, I just want to write this story in the best I can to do the characters justice and give you the most entertainment. I will update soon, promise. **


	3. Alien Clones?

Chapter 3: Alien Clones?

"Hikaru are you still there?" Haruhi asked looking up at him with concern visible in her deep chocolate orbs and the way she was shaking his shoulder slightly with a blue gloved hand. The man snapped out of it and gave her a funny dazed look.

"Sorry Haruhi, guess I got lost in a memory." Hikaru explained giving her a light peck on the lips that made her blush slightly, Haruhi was still not accustomed to the public displays of affection that Hikaru was infamous for. Not to say that Haruhi didn't love his little kisses or the way his arm felt looped around her waist, but that she was unsure how to act upon her feelings. "Well we had better be going then." He continued pausing only to pick up his suitcase and loop an arm around her waist, "Where are the keys to the car?"

Without pausing to think it through completely, Haruhi passed her boyfriend the keys to Kaoru's Lexus and it wasn't until five minutes later that she remembered why she had initially been planning to withhold said keys from him. "Hey we never talked about Kaoru!" She exclaimed earning a grin from the young man who stopped causing her to stop too as he still had yet to let go of her waist.

"It's alright, I'll get over it." He replied with a smile down at her as they stood there as the flurries of snow fell on top of them leaving them with flakes in their hair and standing out obviously on their eyelashes.

"We're talking about it on the car ride whether you like it or not." She fired right back as she turned on her heel and continued walking to where she had left the car at a nearby parking meter. Following her with a sigh, Hikaru observed his girlfriend's walk and the way that her skinny jeans scraped the sides of her long tan winter jacket with every step she took. He knew it was slightly out of line and more like his teenaged brain speaking out again but he much preferred seeing that walk without the jacket as it covered up the curves that had developed since she had been first confused for a boy, the same curves he loved to feel pressed against him during a kiss.

"Fine, fine, fine." He muttered waving it off as he followed her to where Kaoru's black Lexus LFA was waiting for the couple. Hikaru loved that car; if Tamaki had not introduced him to the marvels of his own Ferrari then he would most definitely have been driving a Lexus LFA too. "I'm just excited that Kaoru decided to take his car instead of mine." The elder Hitachiin laughed excitedly sounding like a little kid again; this was enough to make Haruhi excited simply because he was. She knew that he and Kaoru hadn't had such a good childhood with an absentee mother and a constantly busy and nearly invisible father, so obviously seeing his child-side happy made her happy too.

"Why would he take your car?" Haruhi probed feeling more than a little confused; Kaoru was not a fan of European cars like Hikaru was.

"Kaoru wanted to attempt to convince Tamaki that he was me but that won't work without you at his side. Tamaki is well aware that we're now the two for the price of one deal, I mean what would you do without my mathematical abilities?" Hikaru teased with a smirk that got a smile from the still slightly cross Haruhi; she would make him talk about his annoyance with Kaoru in a minute but in the mean time she could enjoy joking and flirting with him a bit, long as none of the other grown members of the host club were around!

"Probably have to hire an accountant to do the majority of the math for me so I could get along just fine, the better question is how you would make it through life without me to be rational and reasonable enough for the two of us." She teased back earning a larger smile from Hikaru as he grabbed her hand, twirled her around, and pulled her into a hug.

"I can be rational." He whispered in her ear and winced slightly to himself as he felt the vibrations of her laugh into his jacket front as she giggled about the absurdity of the idea.

"And I can do complex Calculus without blinking an eye." Her sarcasm made him smile; it was that sardonic tone that she could have that made him love her in every way as it was the part of her that was most like him. Looking up at him innocently even as she said it causing her big chocolate brown eyes to lock with his tawny golden ones

"Of course you can..." The CFO of the Hitachiin Company replied rolling his eyes and pulling her tighter as the snow flurried down around and on them covering their clothes with more white dandruff from the sky. "So in other words it's good that we're a package deal."

Haruhi continued looking up at him with a concentrated look in her eyes before she sighed, blushed, and broke eye contact with his cat-like tawny orbs. "I must be pretty terrible at this; I don't know what else to say." The law student explained with a sigh as she scuffed her boot covered feet in annoyance with herself causing Hikaru to blush too.

"You don't have to say anything." Hikaru interjected earning a look of surprise from the slightly blushing girl. "Dammit I give up, I suck at this too!" He cursed as he stopped attempting to flirt with her and keep up the suspense and instead crashed his lips to hers in a kiss that she returned enthusiastically after a surprise filled second. Pausing only for air, Hikaru pulled away as Haruhi's eyes fluttered open in surprise at the sudden absence caused by Hikaru's mouth no longer on hers. "Just needed air, I know it's hard to be believe but I am only human."

"You sure about that? I thought you were an alien clone of Kaoru this whole time!" She teased him with a large grin gracing her features as she gave her dazed and slightly confused boyfriend a light peck on the cheek. Continuing walking to the car that Hikaru, thankfully, had unlocked prior to their kiss she interlocked her fingers tightly and pulled him along slightly behind her with a giggle. "Will you be able to drive Hika? You seem a little out of it."

"How could I be an alien clone of Kaoru? I'm older than him by a full five minutes!" He yelped sounding self conscious and not understanding that Haruhi had been joking the whole time. By this point Haruhi was all out laughing with the passenger side of the door open and her leaning completely on it to prevent her from falling over in her mirth. Hikaru looked completely confounded as she fell in the red interior seat and continued her nonstop laughing in a very un-Haruhi like manner. Raising a single orange eyebrow at her as he climbed into the passenger seat and thanked God for the automatically closing doors. It took a full minute for Haruhi to calm down enough to explain let alone speak at all and during that minute, Hikaru managed to start the car, readjust the seat, change the radio to a preset he preferred, and pull into the oncoming traffic bringing them one step closer to Kyoya's house. "I am older than Kaoru." Hikaru muttered to himself earning an encore of the peals of laughter from the girl beside him causing him to sigh, would he ever understand this girl completely?

"No!" Haruhi yelled randomly between contagious giggles startling him, could his girlfriend read minds now? "It was only a joke!" She continued earning a sigh of relief from the boy as he realized that she couldn't read minds and it hit her that he must have had a similar experience to the one she had had earlier that made her think he had spontaneously gained the power of telekinesis. In a combination of relief and finally realizing the hilarity of Haruhi's joke, Hikaru began to laugh along with her and the two would probably have laughed the whole nearly 45 minute car ride home if not for the sudden ringing that filled the car and the name of the person they both least wanted to talk to popping up on the caller ID of the Bluetooth system.

**Who could that be on the phone? On another note, not to sound like a desperate author but without reviews I don't know what parts to correct and better in order to make the story better. Even if it's anything from criticim to simple punctuation mishaps, ****_please read and review_****! I apologize for this installment taking a few hours longer than usual to post, I got distracted by the pitfalls of the worlds of Netflix and the blackhole that is YouTube. The next one will he posted in a much more timely manner!**


	4. A Good Night Yet

Chapter 4: A Good Night Yet

"Renge!" They both exclaimed in fear as Hikaru jabbed out at the end call button at that same time as Haruhi causing them both to hit the wrong button which in Hikaru's case was the answer button and Haruhi's was the button that accelerated the volume to the max.

"Haruhi! Why'd you leave me all alone with bossy Kyoya?" Renge whined with her amplified voice causing both twenty-two year olds to wince. This must be what the birds of Hell sounded like, Hikaru thought to himself as he worried that his ear drums might have ruptured and swore to himself that he would never be in a small enclosed area with Renge in person.

"Remember it was because I had to pick up Hikaru, Renge. You love Kyoya enough to marry him so he can't be that bossy." Haruhi shook her head and knew what Hikaru was thinking, Renge was actually the bossy person in that relationship. "You already had most of the decorations up by the time I left, eh?"

"Well yeah, but-" The French girl argued before being interrupted by Haruhi as Hikaru searched desperately for a stray piece of paper to pull the old static trick.

"So I know that since your decorations already look gorgeous they're bound to look spectacular by the time everyone gets there." She must really want to get Renge off the phone, he realized as she never sucked up like this unless she wanted someone to go away and by away she always meant far, far, far away. Hikaru had to restrain himself from shouting with exuberance when he found an old grocery list in Murai's handwriting and written on the yellow legal paper that could only belong to Kaoru or Murai herself, either way it was paper and that was all his ear drums cared about.

Before Renge could reply and hurt his already bleeding ears, Hikaru leapt into the conversation while keeping one hand on the steering wheel and crumpling the paper with the other. "Oh no, Renge! I can't hear you over all this static, catch you when we get to your house!" Clicking off the phone call with a sigh of relief and a whispered amen from Hikaru, Haruhi leaned back and closed her eyes with her own identical sigh of relief.

"You're brilliant." Haruhi murmured to Hikaru earning a chuckle and a smirk from the young man beside her. With one hand on the wheel the red haired mathematician reached over and squeezed her knee lovingly.

"I know you're desperate when you get to be this nice." He pointed out still feeling proud that she had called him brilliant under any circumstances.

"Don't push it you idiot." She fired back as she leaned on his shoulder as he drove causing him to blush and feel like the little box weighing down his pocket along with the question that went along with it wouldn't receive an automatic negative response. In the comfortable silence, Haruhi felt herself beginning to sink into slumber as Hikaru drove quietly feeling beyond grateful for her presence not just then but in his life in general. "We're going back to the hotel first, eh?" She asked breaking the silence as she opened her heavy eyelids and forced herself to stay awake.

"Eh? Yes I know we both need to change and I figured it would be better to drop my stuff off before the party. Especially since heaven alone knows if Kaoru will get back around the same time we do." Haruhi sat up and gave him a pointed look that made him groan and pinch the bridge of his nose with the hand that wasn't on the steering wheel. "Don't make me talk about my feelings please Dr. Haruhi!"

"I'm no doctor Hika, I just know that you need to talk about how you feel about Kaoru and Sato-kun." Haruhi replied feeling confused, even after all these years she didn't understand the twins joking ways completely. "Can you please just talk to me?"

Hikaru made his infamous huffing noise yet again as he mentally faced an inner debate over whether to tell her or not. Eventually his inner battle won in Haruhi's favor and he began to voice his feelings about Kaoru, "It's just that he's letting in all these girls and, as I said earlier, he is ignoring the only person he should!"

"This is your jealousy coming out again isn't it?" She inquired and heard him grumble in annoyance that she could tell when he was jealous in seconds now. "Would talking to him make things better between you two?" He nodded and she smiled, "Then you must know what you have to do next time you see him."

"Fine, fine, fine." The elder twin replied waving it off even as it hit him, he had to use words to get his point across with his own brother; the person who had understood him through the movement of a hand or the upward flick of an eyebrow in the past and now needed to be talked to directly. Did this prove that growing up apart from Kaoru had been a bad idea after all? Glancing over at Haruhi, he knew that it hadn't been a bad decision because if they hadn't grown apart he wouldn't have allowed himself to fall for her nor let himself be happy with the girl of his dreams.

By the time he had finished considering this, they had arrived at the hotel and he found himself pulling into the only open parking space. "Why is it so busy?" Haruhi asked looking around at the other cars as she stepped out of the Lexus. Hikaru chuckled as he opened the back seat to grab his bag before striding around the car in order to stand beside her.

"That's because it's New Years Eve and there's supposed to be a party here for some business that has to do with producing martial arts equipment." He explained offering her his arm, which she surprisingly took, and the couple walked inside to Haruhi's, and now Hikaru's as well, room on the third floor. "Why are there no elevators here?" Hikaru asked knowing that Haruhi was going to call him out any moment now for being a rich snob and he was not left waiting long.

"I had forgotten how much of a rich snob you can still be at times." She observed earning a head hung in shame from the red haired boy scaling the spiral fancy stairs beside her. "Good thing I actually concur with you on this one, I would like an escalator too because who makes circular stairs and then doesn't label the floors?"

"Idiots that's who." Hikaru fired back with a grin that reached from ear to ear and earned a smile from Haruhi. Interlocking her fingers with his, Haruhi pulled him off the staircase on what she had learned was the third floor through trial and error. "This is our floor?" She nodded as she pointed out the number three written on a sheet of legal paper and taped there by a careless hand as it was crooked at best. Leading him to room number 5, Haruhi produced the bronze key that Hikaru could already tell she found to be excessive at the very least and overtly unnecessary at the most.

"Welcome to home sweet home for tonight and tomorrow!" Haruhi began sarcastically and was surprised when Hikaru grinned at her and gave her hand a squeeze.

"You're home enough for me." He whispered lovingly and Haruhi gave him a peck on the cheek before letting him all the way into the apartment as they both blushed slightly. "You usually don't accept my romantic gestures, is something different about today?" His question was expected, she realized as she was bring more romantic than normal.

"That's because I did miss you." She explained and found herself feeling confused because she really didn't understand why, it just felt natural. "Plus you are in a way my home now, I don't exactly have any other family."

Haruhi's logic made Hikaru feel awful, he really was the closest thing she had to a family now and that was a fact that saddened him. "You are the best family a guy could ever want and you are always going to be home enough for me, always." She smiled at him as he leaned forward and planted a light kiss on her lips.

"Thanks." The law student replied giving him a quick hug before letting him all the way into their room so he could put his bag down and she could get ready as well. Murai had already done her make-up and since she didn't let anyone touch her hair, all she had to do was put on the dress Kaoru had given her for Christmas and made her hide from Hikaru until tonight's party. But Hikaru didn't know that yet, he was just excited to be shrugging off his winter coat, after transferring the all-important velvet box to his suit pocket. Despite being tempted to wear the tan suit, bright blue vest, and black button down he was currently sporting, Hikaru changed into his navy suit pants, taking the time to transfer the velvet box, before poking his head into the bathroom where Haruhi had just pulled off her winter jacket and was in the process of undoing her boots.

"What color are you wearing tonight?" He inquired causing the girl to look up and blush a little at seeing him without a shirt on. Pausing to think about it, she was really tempted to reply that it was a surprise but instead replied with the actual answering mostly because she knew they really didn't have time for guessing games.

"Navy and silver, were you trying to match?" Her response becoming a question did not surprise him, she could be rather inquisitive at times.

"I am the CFO of the biggest fashion cooperation in Japan, it was be irresponsible if I was not matching my absolutely gorgeous girlfriend." Hikaru fired back earning an eye roll from Haruhi as he exited the bathroom and heard her close the door in order to change out of her winter casual wear and into the gown she was wearing for tonight. For the life of him he could not figure out which one it was, she only had so many dresses she would wear perhaps this was a new one? Dismissing the thought, Hikaru buttoned up his silver button down and tucked it into his pants. Just as Haruhi exited the bathroom and turned around with her hair pulled up in one hand and the other holding her dress together.

"Zip me up please?" She asked as she Hikaru walked over to her speechless, it was a beautiful dress to begin with but the fact of the matter was that it made Haruhi look absolutely gorgeous, it must have been made for her. The navy gown was accented with a silver sash around her waist and silver beads that adorned the fabric that clung tightly to her slender torso and begun with a halter top and moved loosely around her lower body. "Kaoru did a great job didn't he?" Her voice broke through his observation of the dress that accented his girlfriend's already beautiful form and forced him into motion allowing him to return to his task of zipping up her dress as she turned around and smiled at him awaiting his response.

"He just became one of my favorite people because, just by the way, you look absolutely stunning." Hikaru replied pulling her into a quick kiss before he let her go in order to grab his New Years tie which just happened to be navy as well and adorned with silver fireworks. Come to think of it, it was a Christmas gift from Kaoru this year; damn his brother was good.

"Here let me help you with that." Haruhi offered with a smile as she stepped forward and did his tie for him which made him smile lovingly.

"Thanks Haruhi." He replied as he grabbed his navy blazer with one hand, car keys and wallet with the other, while kicking on his shoes. "Are you completely ready?" Haruhi nodded as he pulled on his jacket in order to stuff his wallet in there. Hopping around on one foot then the other, Hikaru managed to get his shoes on before rushing into the bathroom to grab her coat which he offered to her with a smile. "For the beautiful lady."

Giggling, Haruhi shrugged the coat on as Hikaru reached for the door and she gave him a funny look. "I'm forgetting something, aren't I?" He asked earning another giggle as Haruhi grabbed the extra winter coat he had tossed in his overnight bag. "Eh? You're right, what would I ever do without you Haruhi?"

"Freeze to death?" She proposed and he chuckled as he followed her out the door, pausing only to pocket the waiting hotel key on the dresser by the door. Tonight was going to be a good night, he could just feel it. "Hikaru, did you grab the belated Christmas gifts?" Glancing down at his hands which were empty of everything but Kaoru's car keys, Hikaru cursed to himself as he walked back into the hotel room.

"Dammit!" Maybe if he could just remember to bring everything, it might still be a great night yet.

**Thanks for reading thus far, I'm sorry for the late update. I will try to be better about updating in a more timely manner. Please leave a review! **


	5. Parking Spot Probs

Chapter 5: Parking Spot Probs

By the time they got to Kyoya's, the party had already begun making parking that much more difficult for Hikaru. Growling under his breath, Hikaru found himself driving around the parking area for the umpteenth time in the past five minutes. Haruhi glanced over at him and sighed, she too was annoyed with the parking situation but she had slightly more control than the hyperactive and likely enough exhausted red haired twin sitting beside her.

"This wouldn't be an issue if I had just ordered a taxi!" Hikaru grumbled smacking the steering wheel for emphasis. Feeling his irritation coming off of him in waves, Haruhi suppressed her sarcastic response about him being a rich snob and instead choose to use the serious response.

"But then you wouldn't have saved me from Renge's crazy decorating." She pointed out earning a smile that only graced his mouth and didn't quite reach his cat-like eyes, his furrowed red eyebrows, nor smoothed the lines on his forehead. Giving up on the idea of comforting him, Haruhi sighed and looked out the window in time to catch sight of Mitsukuni "Honey" jumping up and down beside the ever silent Takashi "Mori" in front a suddenly open spot. "There!" The law student pointed out with a happy grin at the mere thought of Hikaru in a better mood. Turning his head and breathing out a sigh of relief, he really just wanted to tonight to go perfectly but good luck like that could never happen to someone like him hence why things like forgetting his jacket, the presents, and not being able to find a parking spot occurred. Pulling the white car smoothly a little ahead of the parking spot, Hikaru clicked the automatically parallel park button and grinned as the car automatically turned the steering wheel and pulled perfectly into the difficult spot.

"Hika-chan that is beyond cool, isn't that right Takashi?" Honey bubbled as he stopped jumping up and down but instead flipped up and pulled himself on to the stoic Mori's back. Mori grunted as a form of affirmative response as Hikaru grinned at them before scratching his head sheepishly with a shrug as he walked around to open up Haruhi's door.

"It would be better if it could create its own parking spot but eh, that's technology we can leave for folks like Kyoya, my dad, and my little sister Ageha to create." The twin pointed out earning a giggle from Honey and a half smile from Mori. Grabbing the door handle, he pulled open the passenger door in one fluid motion as Haruhi stepped out of the seat and gave him a pointed look.

"You don't have to get the door for me Hika; I can open it for myself." She muttered with her eyes narrowed slightly at the red head which made him blush slightly, even after all the years of dealing with similar comments he still reacted the same way he had in their second year which was a bright red blush accompanied by a smile. As she stepped out holding the belated presents for Tamaki, Honey, Honey's wife Reiko, and Mori in her arms, Honey and Mori couldn't help but stare at her. Luckily, Hikaru was too busy to see their widened eyes as he used his cat-like reflexes to catch the top gift as it began to fall off the haphazardly organized pile in Haruhi's arms.

"You look like you're wearing the night sky tonight Haruhi! It's beautiful!" Honey complemented her with a big charming smile like the one expected of his high school self but was rarely seen by anyone in his work life as a professional engineer and a martial arts teacher at a dojo he owned with Mori.

Speaking of Mori, the silent and stoic kendo champion and animal lover, was also starring at Haruhi up and down with a look of surprise gracing his normally serious features. "Beautiful." Was all he said as he looked at the ground sheepishly and Haruhi grinned at the pair of friends.

"Thanks, be sure to tell Kaoru that you like his design then." She smiled back as she leaned back to close the door and heard Hikaru groan at the fact that she knew nothing about cars and how to treat them in the right way. Mori and Honey were unsurprised that she didn't accept their complements with the blushing and stuttering that most adult women still had when they saw the two grown married men that had worked as hosts in high school.

"I'll have to tell Kaoru-chan to make one for Reiko then, but she'll probably want it in all black knowing her." Honey fired back with a big loving smile as the group walked towards the big house with the loud jubilant noises emitting from it. "Sounds like they're having fun in there!" The grown Lolita-boy said with a grin as he jumped down from Mori's back and began to walk as fast he possibly could, "Hurry up or we're going to miss it!" He exclaimed breaking into a run as Mori shook his head and strode after him with his longer legs letting him keep up easily with the running Honey.

"More like hurry up and save me." Haruhi muttered under her breath as her deep loathing for big grandiose parties like Kyoya's surfaced. Hikaru chuckled knowing that once she got inside she would buck up and deal with it but the long walk from car to party was the only time she ever complained about anything really. She was not a complainer like Hikaru or the king of complaining that was Tamaki Suoh.

"I'm sure you'll live" Hikaru pointed out with a smile as he looped an arm around Haruhi's waist and pulled her close to plant a kiss on her temple which made her blush slightly, again she was not big on the public displays of emotion as anyone and everyone knew. "Plus this isn't New Years Eve without a bonenkai party* like this one, eh?"

"I suppose you're right, and I guess as long as they have toshikoshi soba**, fancy tuna, and champagne I suppose I can make it through a few hours." She sighed and Hikaru's smile spread from ear to ear as he used his free hand to finger the velvet box in his pocket.

"Eh?" He gasped in feigned shock, "What about me?" Pointing at his chest with the hand that had been in his pocket and his tawny eyes wide, Hikaru continued with a fake sniffle, "Don't you need me too?" Shrugging her shoulders, Hikaru's face fell as the girl giggled and knocked into him with a swing of her hips causing him to stumble slightly. Regaining his balance with a smile, he just couldn't seem to stop smiling around her, he tightened his arm around her waist and the couple climbed up the steps in synchronicity. Reaching the top of the stairs, Hikaru removed his arm from around her waist and instead offered his elbow to lead her in the old fashioned way. Chuckling at the way he could be such a gentleman at times, she gripped his bicep tightly and the pair each grabbed a door handle that they pulled open simultaneously. The scent of roses followed the multitude of rose petals that flew out the door, startled the pair as did the bright light that followed the roses and blinded them making both Hikaru and Haruhi pity any girl who had ever gone through the entrance into the abandoned music room #3.

***=literally ****"year forgetting parties" in Japanese that out New Years Eve tradition**

****=buckwheat noodles that symbolize longevity and are always served on New Years Eve in Japan, kind of like black eyed peas in the southern part of the United States**

**Gomenasai for the long wait and the short chapter! Apparently summer is a busier time than I thought between summer reading, work, and sports conditioning. I will try my best to update sooner but I make no promises. Pretty please read and review! It's rather difficult for an author to read their audience without their commentary so PLEASE review!**


	6. Happy

Chapter 6: Happy

By the time the bright light had died down, Hikaru and Haruhi found themselves looking into the spacious rooms of the Kyoya Manor and the large amounts of businessmen, politicians, and other wealthy party goers. Hikaru was far more used to this amount of activity at parties than Haruhi was but even he was surprised by the large amounts of activity at this bonenkai party, they were usually just small affairs with family and close friends. Leave it to Renge and Kyoya to put on this huge affair the first year of their marriage.

"Haruhi, my beloved daughter! Come to Daddy!" A blonde haired businessman in his early twenties cried as he ran towards them with the coat tails of his white suit flying behind him. Haruhi sighed as she turned toward Hikaru and groaned only to find her boyfriend mysteriously missing from her side. Groaning to herself in exasperation, Haruhi turned her narrowed sharp chocolate brown eyes towards Tamaki which effectively stopped the flirtatious leader of the former host club in his tracks.

"Don't you dare you, idiot!" She hissed causing Tamaki to suddenly become deflated and all black-and-white in an anime-esque manner before passing out in front of her on the floor. This left Haruhi with not only the problem of a passed out Tamaki, and a missing Hikaru who was pissed at Kaoru who was also missing. "This is why I hate when everyone gets back together!" A sudden chuckle made her turn around as Kyoya appeared with a surprising old friend in tow. "Kasanoda!"

The red haired yakuza leader's dark brown almost black eyes raked down her form in a manner that even she, in her obliviousness to all things emotional and romantic, found creepy and made her really wish that Hikaru was here to be his usual jealous self and yell at Kasanoda. "Respect women, Ritsu." Mori rumbled appearing behind Haruhi and giving Kasanoda a purposeful look with his narrowed gray eyes. Kasanoda stepped back and nodded before bowing in respect to Mori however his eyes never left Haruhi's form. Even Kyoya was beginning to glare at Kasanoda for his inconsiderate attitude when it came to Haruhi.

"Of course Mori-senpai." Said the yakuza leader with a slight slur to his speech that could only be the product of alcohol. Mori hated alcohol; he believed that it not only ruined the athleticism of a body but it destroyed relationships of all types, including that of his fiancé and her father. Haruhi was of a similar opinion; however she didn't mind the occasional beverage but Kasanoda clearly had already had a few more than needed with another in hand.

"Drinking too much will make your breath smell and causes cavities!" A small voice announced with a tiny finger pointed by a rather unusually short man. Little pink flowers danced about his head and Mori face palmed which was an un-Mori-like motion due to its lack of seriousness.

"Mitsukuni, alcohol doesn't give you cavities!" Honey's wife Reiko exclaimed as she stepped up behind Honey and grabbed his arm to pull him away from the drunk Kasanoda, the confused Haruhi, the passed out Tamaki, and the pissed off Mori and Kyoya. The couple walked away with Reiko's taller form in the black cocktail dress pulling Honey along as she headed towards the desert table in an attempt to divert his attentions from the rest of the group.

Tamaki chose that moment to reawaken and upon catching sight of the way that Kasanoda was still looking at Haruhi, he proceeded to faint again and Kyoya gave up on leading around drunk Kasanoda to drag Tamaki out of the middle of the argument. "Dramatic bastard!" The Ootori business head cursed as he dragged the blonde to an open chair and propped him up next to it. "He'd better wake up soon or I'll kill him." The still slightly malicious Kyoya muttered to the passed out Tamaki before he waltzed off to go grab them both a drink and alert Renge who was the best at breaking up situations in which even the calm-level headed Mori had become upset.

Returning her attention to the still smirking, ogling, and drunk Kasanoda, Haruhi felt rather than heard Mori vocalizing his disappointment in Kasanoda. Kasanoda gave an effort at looking ashamed which, with all the alcohol in his system, was easier said than done. "I'm sorry Mori-senpai." The yakuza leader apologized to Mori, which was awfully ironic when the person his look was actually insulting was not the one being apologized to.

Nodding to Kasanoda Mori and the yakuza leader walked off with the drunkard chit chatting and Mori nodding or shaking his head in response. Hikaru picked the moment of reconciliation to walk up with an arm around Kaoru and a big grin on his face. "What's up with my Haruhi?" He asked not realizing how his timing was the exact opposite of impeccable at the moment. Rounding on him, Hikaru and Kaoru simultaneously took a step back as Haruhi took a deep breath to being yelling at him for abandoning her and leaving her to deal with Kasanoda's creepy looks without Hikaru to have a jealous tantrum. Sadly she never got around to the yelling bit as she was interrupted by someone else yelling louder.

"MY DAUGHTER!" Tamaki cried as he ran up behind her and tackled her with a hug which she quickly ended with a well placed elbow and a stomp on his toe. Yelping as he leapt up and down with tears streaming down his cheeks as he tried to simultaneously hold his throbbing foot and aching side. This motion ended with him falling heels over head, backwards onto his back causing a huge thud as he hit his head on the tile behind him. "Haruhi?" He sobbed from where he sat with his legs at odd angles, and one hand rubbing the back of his head gingerly, "Why'd you do that to your father, your own beloved Daddy?"

"You're not my father senpai!" She exclaimed turning the full force of her anger on the blonde princely man as she stomped a foot close to his extended foot which he pulled back in fear of her breaking it this time. "And don't run up behind me and grab me! You're the one who told me to learn martial arts and then don't expect me to use it when you do something stupid like that!" As Haruhi continued to yell Kaoru turned to his brother as he heard Hikaru begin to laugh and chuckled to himself as he saw the happiness hidden behind the mirth in his matching tawny gold eyes.

"Are you sure you want to marry that?" Kaoru whispered low enough so that only his twin could hear. Hikaru's laughter stopped as suddenly as it had started as he turned to his brother and cracked a smile that reached from ear to ear and left a twinkle in his eyes.

"Definitely, I love all of her. No matter her moods because…" The younger twin didn't even let his brother finish because he already knew the answer and still loved to finish Hikaru's sentences.

"She makes you happy."

**Sorry for the wait! I've been trying to update more regularly but 24 hours is just not enough hours in a day. Please read and review because reviews like Kiraya's make it easier for authors to revise their writing style and create an environment where the characters are more, well, in character. So thank you Kiraya, and, to the rest of you readers, please review with criticism so I can better your reading experience. I promise to update sooner next time!**


	7. Impulsive Haruhi

Chapter 7: Impulsive Haruhi

Hikaru pondered this as Kaoru's attention turned back to Haruhi berating Tamaki, Haruhi did make him happy. She actually made him beyond happy because happiness was impermanent; Hikaru loved her because she filled his life with an unending joy. Yes he got mad at her, and yes she got mad at him but even in their anger, she brought something into his life that nobody before could; not even Kaoru.

"And don't think I won't get around to you too." Haruhi announced as she gave him a pointed look that made Kaoru leap away with a slight yelp in fright. Running off Kaoru snickered as he went looking for his old friend, Murai. Murai was a martial arts expert like Mori and Honey, and she had for years been protecting Kaoru's butt whenever someone was pissed at him.

"Oh I'll wait my turn." Hikaru fired back with a wink earning a humph noise from Haruhi that made him chuckle. It was quite obvious that Tamaki had had quite enough by now and had gone into his depression corner complete with mushrooms and him making hamster bedding out of paper that appeared from nowhere.

"Classic Tamaki!" Both Hikaru and Haruhi muttered in unison causing them both to look at each other and the second that his golden eyes met her chocolate ones, they began to giggle.

"You two have been together too long." Murai snorted as she walked up wearing a mint green tight-fitting strapless cocktail dress that revealed her athletic build. Kaoru peeked around her form and smirked as Murai continued, "You sound like Kaoru and Hikaru did!"

Kaoru stopped smirking and stepped out from behind Murai to glare at his old friend as Hikaru simultaneously stepped forward to stand next to his twin. "You make that sound like a bad thing." They accused in unison with identical stances and identical glares.

Murai shrugged leaving both man looking more confused than before and earning a laugh from Haruhi as she stepped out from behind the pair and gave Murai a wave. Both girls were deeply involved in the pursuit of the law and extremely interested in protecting the innocents from those who were willing to bend it to their own whims since Murai was hell-bent on becoming a cop and Haruhi was still dead-bent on becoming a lawyer. Therefore the two had become fast friends ever since Haruhi had met her one night at the Hitachiin mansion. "Is it better thing Hikaru?"

"I don't think so Kaoru." The two stood there with their arms around each other making them look for all the world like they had when they were partners during their days in the host club. Rolling their eyes simultaneously, the two girls sauntered over to the table with the toshikoshi soba and the fancy tuna.

"When are you going to propose?" Kaoru asked leaning on his brother and slightly jumping up and down causing giggles from the girls around them, even Tamaki's so-called girlfriend was blushing along with the rest; nobody could get over twincest no matter their age.

Hikaru scuffed his feet earning even more blushing and giggling from the girls, but he could not have cared less. To him it really was embarrassing that it had taken him this long to get up the nerve to ask Haruhi to marry him. "I'm working on that part…"

"Hikaruuuuu!" Kaoru moaned dragging out the end sound of his brother's name, "Can I at least see the ring?" He begged sounding more like a bridesmaid than the twin brother of the man who was asking his girlfriend to become his fiancé.

Fishing it out of his pocket, Hikaru opened the box carefully revealing the diamond that he had handpicked after weeks of search. In the end, he had chosen the ring that his grandmother Kazuha had been given by his grandfather before the two started the Hitachiin fashion company. It truly was fairly conservative since they had been pretty dead broke at the time however it still may be a little much for Haruhi's taste.

"It's a little small." The younger twin drawled sounding like a southern woman who sings in the gospel choir and is constantly fanning herself and telling anyone who makes the mistake of asking that any type of food is not as perfect as her mamma's recipe.

"You're a little small." Hikaru fired back in a total middle school-esque response; Kaoru gave him a raised eyebrow that made a light bulb of shame go on over Hikaru's head. Groaning as he realized the alternate interpretation of what he'd just said, Hikaru face palmed before glaring at his, now, smirking twin. "You know what I meant!" Kaoru burst into giggles just as Haruhi and Murai returned with plates full of an odd combination of the traditional noodles and the dish that Haruhi continued to refer to as "fancy tuna".

"I will never understand men." Murai blurted out earning a chuckle from Haruhi as a blushing Hikaru rushed to return the box to his pocket and Kaoru continued to laugh unperturbed by the reappearance of the women.

"Yeah well I'll never understand women." Kaoru fired back once he caught his breath and the pair continued to argue as they walked off leaving Haruhi and Hikaru on their own for the first time since the pair had walked through the door.

"So where'd you run off to?" Haruhi spun around to interrogate him and was instead met with a unflustered Hikaru smirk.

"Just was knocking some sense into Kaoru." He replied before spinning around and leaving a hand on her shoulder as he pointed with the other. Following the direction of his finger she caught sight of Kaoru with an arm around Murai's waist as they chuckled together. "Apparently, when Kaoru was mysteriously missing this afternoon he was hiding from Sato-san after breaking up with her. She obviously didn't take it too well."

Looking over at him with an unwitting smile, as she hadn't forgotten how annoyed she'd been with him, Haruhi considered how much his impulsive ways led to forgiveness and wished that she could be impulsive sometimes too rather than just calculatingly logical like a mini version of Kyoya but with a little bit more of a soul. By the time she had finished thinking this through, the pair was beside a table and Haruhi placed her plate down before sitting in the chair that Hikaru pulled out for her simply because she knew that if she didn't Hikaru would complain all night about how she hadn't allowed him to be a gentleman.

"And I thought that Renge was the matchmaker." The law student teased as she completely put her own anger aside for a moment and directed all her energies to making Hikaru blush. It didn't work precisely as she liked because although Hikaru appeared flustered at being compared to Renge, he was not blushing.

Scuffing his feet against the floor, he sounded more like a defensive Haruhi than his usual impulsive self, "I can be romantic too when I calculate the possibility of two people being perfect for each other." Haruhi grinned as she said exactly what Hikaru would have when he was being simply flirtatious and not as romantic.

"Well than calculate this Hika." Standing on her tip toes, she grabbed his tie to pull him down to her level and pressed a light kiss to his lips. When she let him go, Haruhi found Hikaru blushing like mad and grinned as he rubbed his lips thoughtfully before he looked up at her with his tawny golden eyes filled with a passionate, fiery love for the girl in front of him.

"Come back over here you crazy girl." He murmured with his voice a few octaves lower than normal as he stepped forward and planted another kiss on her lips this one being longer, more passionate, and involving a bit of tongue.

Pulling away first, mostly due to lack of air, Haruhi grinned up at Hikaru as he attempted to steal another kiss. "We can't enjoy the party if we are just sucking each other's faces."

"Fiiiinnnneee." The young man groaned before pecking her cheek quickly, "I had to have one more for the road." He pointed out as he looped an arm around her waist after the pair stood up, Haruhi having forgotten about her plate of delicious food.

"My tuna!" She yelped after realizing what had occurred and quickly slipped out of her boyfriend's grip to sit back down and munch on her food.

Chuckling to himself, Hikaru sat down beside her and sneaked a forkful once in a while when she put her utensil down. "Now, what did I miss when I was off with Kaoru?" His question made her think, should she tell him about the look that Kasanoda gave her that still made her want to shudder? "I mean normally you're a little softer on that idiot Tono."

"Just chatted with Mori, Honey, and Reiko while Kyoya tried, and failed, to calm Tamaki who was in a more affectionate mood than usual." Haruhi replied, masking the truth and choosing the Hikaru impulsive method over her own usually serious and logical mindset.

Hikaru grinned at her and Haruhi smiled, maybe being impulsive wasn't so bad if it meant that Hikaru would have a better night sans the jealous green monster bothering him all night. Squelching her own fears and former anger as Hikaru stole another bite of the toshikoshi soba noodles, Haruhi prayed that nothing bad would come of her not telling Hikaru about her confrontation with Kasanoda.

**Sorry for being so behind on updating, I will try my best to be more on top of things when I update with the next chapter. As a form of apology, I wrote this one to be a little longer. Pretty please with a cherry on top, read and review so that I can better my writing style. Thanks in advance! ^_^**


	8. Can't Take My Eyes Off You

Chapter 8: Can't Take My Eyes Off You

By the time that Haruhi had finished up her food, Hikaru's leg was bouncing up and down like crazy as he grew increasingly impatient. "Are you bored?" She asked earning a look of surprise from Hikaru that looked a lot like the look one gets when they startle a cat.

"Hmm?" The boy replied with a startled noise that even sounded like his ginger cat, Kyo, did whenever you startled the little fellow. "I'm not bored." He insisted as he looked off into the distance and his pupils dilated slightly, Haruhi chuckled as he did this because she knew him well enough to know that look meant he was lying.

She chuckled as she stood up and offered the pouting man a hand, "Like hell you're not bored." Hikaru looked up at her with a smirk, he felt like he was dealing with the cursing Haruhi that appeared whenever he bothered her when she was stressed, studying, or just downright exhausted.

Taking her outstretched hand, Hikaru stood with a slight stiffness in his right knee due to an injury from playing tennis when Kaoru bet him that he couldn't beat their little sister Ageha in a match. Needless to say, Ageha won and Hikaru ended up having to go visit Kyoya's brother Dr. Yuuichi Ootori to fix up his knee. "So now we dance, right?" He asked nearly bouncing up and down with joy at the idea of finally getting a formal dance with Haruhi, he had asked her out after prom their senior year and since she had absolutely no inclinations whatsoever to attend social events like the galas their college had had over their four years there. Even back when they were hosts, Hikaru had been unable to actually dance with her after the festival their second year because of his broken arm.

"Can't we just listen to the music first? I can't seem to pick out what time period this is supposed to be." Haruhi was, as per usual, right. The decorations were Roaring 20s in origin yet the music blaring was an odd combination of the Four Seasons, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Billy Joel. Her boyfriend was not as well versed in American culture and didn't catch the unnatural blending of the cultures of different decades.

Glancing up at the ceiling and the speakers specifically which were now blaring Frankie Valli's hit love song "Can't Take My Eyes off You" Hikaru looked back at Haruhi with confusion in his tawny golden eyes. "Eh? They aren't all from the same time period?"

"Of course not you idiot." She chastised him with a sarcastic eye roll that made Hikaru chuckle as he pulled her onto the dance floor despite her cursing and complaining. "I didn't say that I wanted you to drag me out here!"

Hikaru couldn't stop laughing as he spun her around and soon she was laughing too simply because of his infectious energy, "It was just the song, the moment!" He insisted with a natural smile that reached his eyes even as she purposefully stepped on his toes.

The law student scoffed, "You hadn't even heard this song before. I'm willing to bet that you don't even know who's singing it!"

"Need me to document the amount Hikaru?" Kyoya asked as he and Renge spun by them startling Haruhi and making her chocolate brown eyes grow wide in surprise at his ability to be like a ninja in any circumstance.

Hikaru chuckled as Haruhi rounded on Kyoya with a glare after she had regained her composure, "We most definitely do not!"

"You too look so kawaii*!" Renge exclaimed changing the subject effectively as she let go of Kyoya's hands and snatched Haruhi's away from Hikaru's. Both glared at her and Hikaru followed as Renge pulled Haruhi off the dance floor before stepping back and taking in the full effect of the couple's matching evening wear. "I mean Kaoru's planning is impeccable!" Kyoya walked up behind her and grabbed Renge's arm to pull her away and quit bothering the happy couple, "What are you doing sweetheart?"

Chuckling to himself at the irony of his change of position, as in not being the passive observer, Kyoya leaned down and whispered in her ear. "Come on Renge darling, let's leave the happy couple. It's almost midnight after all."

Despite looking like she wanted to stay, Renge allowed herself to be pulled away in order to make a speech to all her guests right before midnight because than she could allow all her giggling feelings of glee at match-making to be released. "Fine, fine, fine!" She allowed before winking at the two as she turned back to look at them, "Still kawaii!" Both Hikaru and Haruhi glared at her retreating back with twin looks of annoyance on their faces.

"That was most definitely not what I wanted our dance to be like tonight." He stated with a pointed look as he grinned before continuing, "For the record that song was sung by Frankie Valli. It's my father's favorite song."

Haruhi looked at him aghast and was exceedingly glad that she hadn't put any money on this especially on Kyoya's books. "It was one of my mother's too. She loved all of the singers from the 60s." Looking down at Hikaru's feet in front of her, Haruhi found that her surprise had dissipated and been replaced by happiness at the thought of Kotoko, "It was what she used to play whenever she danced around the kitchen making dinner." The law student looked back up with her eyes wider than usual as she remembered being held by her mother as she and her father danced around the kitchen.

Hikaru could only look on in silence as Haruhi was lost in the memory, he still couldn't make her situation any better because he couldn't bring back the dead. Suddenly a brilliant idea came to him in the form of a light bulb, but he was interrupted by Renge's shrill magnified voice resounding around the room as she began her speech. "Thank you all for coming!" She exclaimed as she spun up on her little pedestal the same way she had back when she had assisted with the host club when they were all students at Ouran Academy. "Kyoya and I are ecstatic that you could make it and wish you all the best in the new year!" Everyone clapped politely as she pulled a lever and returned to the same level as the rest of the party.

Glancing at his watch, Hikaru grabbed Haruhi's hand and pulled her outside onto one of the nearby balconies. "Hika?" Turning to face her and taking in her confused expression, Hikaru took a deep shaky breath. Flirting was so much easier than being serious!

"You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you." He began in a tremulous low voice that was too low for Haruhi's ears to catch. Motioning for him to speak louder, Hikaru, who was feeling rather silly and was regretting his idea already, began to sing in a soft voice, "You'd be like heaven to touch; I wanna hold you so much. At long last love has arrived, and I thank God I'm alive. You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you." If the song itself hadn't brought her to tears, the sound of Hikaru's voice might have. He sounded just like her father had as he had sung the song to her mother, later she would realize that it wasn't Hikaru's singing voice that was the same; it was the love in it. She closed her eyes as he skipped ahead to the chorus, "I love you, baby, and if it's quite alright I need you, baby, to warm a lonely night, I love you, baby trust in me when I say, 'Oh, pretty baby, don't bring me down, I pray. Oh, pretty baby, now that I found you, stay and let me love you, baby, let me love you." Opening her eyes, she found Hikaru looking up at her from where he now knelt in front of her. Even that wouldn't have been as strange as the velvet box in his hand or the next words that he spoke, "Will you marry me?"

**kawaii*=cute in japanese**

**Cliff hanger! So my ability to update is terrible, please forgive me and, for the record, I blame writer's block at it's worst. But now the cogs of my brain are working so expect updates to be better and more timely...well I'll try anyhow! Thanks to those of you that have reviewed and please enjoy your reading experience and review so I can better it for the most important people, you the readers!**


	9. Thundersnow

**I forgot to add in the past chapter as well as this one that along with Ouran (which I have previously stated that I do not own), I also do not own "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" as that is the property of singer Frankie Valli and the Gaudio/Valli Productions. Now, enjoy!**

Chapter 9: Thundersnow

Haruhi stood there completely shocked with her mouth open and her chocolate brown eyes wide with surprise. Despite having dated Hikaru for years, she hadn't seen this coming at least tonight since it was New Years Eve. Standing there looking just as astounded as could be, Hikaru looked and felt terrified as the silence grew longer and longer. Staring up at Haruhi, he took in every aspect of her dress, her slender build, and her shocked facial expression. "Um? I need an answer soon Haruhi, this position is making my knee hurt."

His words brought her back to reality because it was just so Hikaru; it was the Hikaru that she loved because he was brutally honest, just like her. "You even had to ask you idiot?" She answered with a grin as she offered her hand to pull him up but he instead pulled her down onto his knee and smirked at her.

Pausing only to slip the ring on her finger, Hikaru smirked at her as he pulled them both up to a standing position, taking the time to lean down so that his lips were level with her ear. "Pardon the way that I stare," Rather than sing, he just whispered the song lyrics in a husky voice this time since Hikaru was sure that her ears had had enough of his singing, "There's nothing else to compare, the sight of you leaves me weak. There are no words left to speak, but if you feel like I feel please let me know that it's real."

"It's very real." Haruhi interjected with a smirk as she pulled away to face him as she whispered the last part, "You're just too good to be true. Can't take my eyes off of you."

The two were so involved in their little infinity that they missed out on the start of the countdown. Now there was only seconds left until this year faded into the next as the crowd yelled, "Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!" Closing the distance between them, Hikaru's lips collided with hers and he felt a different sort of fireworks spark between them as the colorful ones exploded into the sky over their heads.

By the time Haruhi had pulled away, both had finally registered the dropping temperature and were staring at each other with matching blue lips, goose bump covered skin, and chattering teeth. "Can we go inside yet? It's freezing out here!"

"And you said I'd freeze without you." He teased as he pulled her inside in the nick of time to catch sight of Murai and Kaoru with their lips still locked together as they clung to each other tighter than the way a drowning man would grip a life preserver. "Whoa." Hikaru heard himself say as Haruhi laughed as though she'd known all along. "You knew didn't you?"

Still chuckling Haruhi smirked at him, "Only because Murai told me, I can barely figure out my own emotions let alone anyone else's on my own you know."

"That's why you're marrying me, I've got enough emotional prowess for the both of us!" Hikaru bragged as she gave him a look that clearly said that she didn't think that it was a trait to brag about in the least. Puffing his chest out, she let him have his moment as she scanned the crowd quietly for a sight of any of their other friends, discounting Murai and Kaoru of course. When her chocolate brown orbs didn't catch sight of Honey at the sweet table with Reiko being dragged there by her husband, Mori observing the fireworks with a smile on his face and an arm around his wife Kiyoko, Tamaki having a panic attack from the noise of the fireworks as a bunch of girls giggled around him, nor Kyoya and Renge locked arm and arm as they worked together to be good hosts with an eye on the time; Haruhi was just about to turn back to tell Hikaru that they should look for the host club members to tell them the news but was stopped when she felt a malicious pair of eyes staring at her and specifically her hand. Normally this wouldn't have unnerved her too much, she had indeed managed to spend two years around the likes of the Black Magic Club and Nekozawa and that had caused her no psychological damage, however the awful stare was followed by a huge rumble of thunder that left her feeling more vulnerable than usual.

Having heard the thunder, Kaoru had finally disentangled himself from Murai to float over to them and whisper to Hikaru, "You get Haruhi back to the hotel, I'll explain your absence to the others. We'll just get a cab back and see you two in the morning." Hikaru gave a sharp nod, he must have felt Haruhi's fingernails digging into his hand as she tried desperately to hide her fright. Kaoru pulled them both into a quick hug before letting them go and using both hands to push them in the general direction of the door.

At least Kaoru's quick action had distracted her from the look that was still sending chills down her spine, Haruhi rationalized as Hikaru let go of her hand, ignoring the pinpricks from where her nails had put too much pressure on his hand, and wrapped an arm protectively around her waist. There was a blessed lull following the thunder that made Haruhi almost believe that she had imagined the noise in the first place. But that was not to be, by the time they made it to the car door the thunder had resounded with another crash that caused her to nearly break her ankle, even with her short heels, as she jumped from fright and whimpered. "Almost there, Haruhi. The car will dull out the majority of the noise." Hikaru promised as he helped her into her seat before dashing around to the driver's side and leaping in himself.

"Hell's bells! How is it snowing outside and thundering at the same time!" He cursed as he started the car and Haruhi looked over at him with her mascara starting to run despite her usual determination not to cry. Gripping the steering wheel tightly, he hit the switch for the headlights, and threw the car into reverse, as he pulled out of the parking spot he'd worked so for in one quick motion before thrusting the car into drive and speeding off.

Even in her fear, she always insisted on correcting him, or anyone really, because Haruhi lived for being right; being a scholarship kid most of your life did that to a person. "It's called thundersnow, and is caused when the flat clouds of snow storms form turrets that create deeper clouds in shallow, unstable layers. It's from those areas that the lightning and thunder come." The thunder seemed to wait for her to finish before it re-awoke and boomed it's mean-spirited cry that brought a squeak out of Haruhi as she brought her knees into her chest and hid her face.

Reaching a hand over to rub her back, Hikaru's eyes never left the road as he traversed the rather short, but feeling like an eternal, route back to the hotel. "Just a little longer Miss Meteorologist." Hikaru promised as he skidded into a parking spot and slammed on the brakes causing the car to protest with an annoyed and offended squeal, Lexus LFA's were not made for this.

"Law is my thing, I hate the weather." She responded before whimpering again as a flash of lightning lit up the car. Her fiancé, wow it felt weird to think that, grimaced as he shrugged on his coat as quickly as he could before throwing open the door as he muttered incoherently with random words being comprehensible like "inside" and "seconds". If that was how he acted with just a storm, she couldn't even imagine how he would react if there was ever a baby involved but that wouldn't be for many years, if ever.

By this time, Hikaru had flung open the door of the car and was standing there holding an umbrella to keep the snow off them. "Well come on already! It's better inside!" His yelling was out of stress, she knew that, but it worked and got her moving through her brontophobia, out of the car, and subsequently into the hotel. The thunder was being surprisingly benevolent and paused the winter weather phenomenon long enough to get the two of them inside and halfway up the stairs. Thunder then proceeded to have a bipolar-esque movement as it boomed again as they neared their landing. Her legs gave out in fear and the only reason that she didn't fall down the stairs completely was Hikaru's quick reflexes that allowed him to catch her before picking her up and carrying her the rest of the way to their hotel doorway. "Keys! Keys! Keys!" He exclaimed as he bit back a curse, they were in his jacket pocket which was currently behind his paralyzed-with-fear fiancé.

"In here." Haruhi softly offered as she nodded to her purse and, with a trembling hand, pulled out the key before leaning forward and unlocking the door. Beaming his gratitude at her as she turned the door knob, Hikaru nudged the door open and quickly rushed her inside. In his rush, he left the door open just long enough that a dark figure managed to sneak in under the couple's radar.

**Yet another cliffhanger! I ought to stop with these, I really do but they are unbelievable fun to write. Updating is a problem for me (clearly) and I appologise deeply for the upteenth time. When they create a group for Procrastinators Anonymous, I solemenly swear to join. Any who, hope this next chapter entertains you thoroughly and pretty please read and review. Enjoy!**


	10. Dammit

Chapter 10: Dammit

By the time Hikaru had turned around, the dark figure had already hidden themselves quite well and the young man was none the wiser as he bustled about grabbing blankets, a pair of Beats headphones to block out the noise, and his iPod. He hadn't even realized that the door was open until somebody walked down the hall, took pity on him, and knocked on the door to alert him to its open state. Nodding his thanks, Hikaru took one bound and had reached the door in time to close it far too enthusiastically resulting in the loud slamming noise that drowned out the thunder enough so that Haruhi could shakily shove the headphones over her ears and blast whatever music Hikaru had been playing last. As the familiar cords of a Taylor Swift song blasted into her ear drums, Haruhi's tears disappeared as she began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" He asked with a slight tremor of fear in his voice as he wondered if the thunder had really driven her to insanity this time. She couldn't stop long enough to tell him that it was his music choice so her fiancé crossed over to her side in three long strides before crawling up behind her on the bed and wrapping his arms around her stomach from behind. Hikaru could feel her shaking with mirth and he began to pray that this laughter was natural and normal, Tono was one crazy person too many already so Hikaru didn't want another.

Showing him the iPod, she continued to chuckle as Hikaru released one arm in order to face palm himself. "Ageha borrowed my iPod last and just got herself a new high school boyfriend; of course she'd choose Taylor Swift."

Haruhi finally managed to slow her giggles long enough to point out the obvious, "You still had her on there to begin with though." The irony of the situation was that Haruhi couldn't even hear him through her headphones; she only understood what he was saying because she was extremely proficient at reading lips.

He started to stammer but ended up waving a white flag of surrender metaphorically as he fired back the worst comeback ever, "Shut up!" It was like seeing the middle school version of Hikaru that she had never met, the sort of awkward kid with zits with a crooked toothed pre-braces grin and chubbier cheeks. This guy never had to deal with that though; he could pay enough money to make all that disappear if he wanted it to. Her family was not so lucky; she had gone through her awkward phase during elementary school and had been all knobby knees and elbows with an asymmetric grin.

A boom of thunder shook her from her meandering thoughts and Haruhi whimpered as she spun around and hid her face in Hikaru's shoulder. "Make it stop." She begged as he held her as close as he could and ignored the nagging whining voice in the back of his head that berated him about how much time it would take to get mascara out of his suit. Old Hikaru would have shoved her away, pulled off the suit, and then held her close but this Hikaru only thought of her and didn't act on such impulses and whims if he could help it.

"I would if I could." He heard himself whisper; all the while knowing that she couldn't possibly hear him, "I would do anything to keep you safe. I promise." The seconds turned to minutes as the thunder rolled away and the storm dissipated off into the distance, but Haruhi couldn't hear it take its leave of absence and Hikaru forgot to tell her. Because of this, the pair remained in each other's arms during those wee hours of the morning. The figure tried hard to hide their gag but the coughing that ensued from this effort was what pulled the two apart. Hikaru's eyes rolled over the figure as the tawny gold eyes scanned the room, the coughing fit had sounded too close for his liking.

Narrowing his eyes and scrunching his eyebrows, Hikaru almost stood up but was prevented from doing so by Haruhi's light hand on his arm. "It was probably someone in the next room over." The young woman observed, as she pulled off the headphones and looked up at him with mascara trailing down her cheeks, her eyes red and puffy, and the tip of her nose was still red as a cherry from her runny nose. Even with that, Hikaru was infatuated with her, love did that to you. It was loving a person regardless of their appearance, because love was loving the interior not the exterior. And her interior was one of the most, if not the most, beautiful thing(s) he'd ever known.

Not that her exterior wasn't gorgeous, especially in that dress, but Hikaru tried his best to steer clear of such wandering tangents when she was in such pain. Forcing himself to ignore the nagging doubt that now permeated his thoughts as his brain refused to accept Haruhi's analysis of the noise; Hikaru instead turned to her and put on his business smile. "You're probably right." He allotted, "Since you're always right."

"Damn right I am." Haruhi fired back with a hardened look as she swiped a fisted hand under her eyes in an attempt to wipe away any remnants of tears and mascara; instead she merely smudged the black make-up deeper into her cheeks.

Chuckling with a knowing glint in his eyes, Hikaru tried desperately to bury his mischievous side as it was best not to piss off one's fiancé the night they agreed to marry you. "Clearly. On another note, since the storm is gone, do you want to enjoy a bit of champagne?"

Raising an eyebrow at him, Haruhi peered around him at the rather small bag that Hikaru had brought with him. "You put a bottle of bubbly in there?"

"No it's in the bag beside it," Hikaru fired back, feeling immensely proud of his planning skills until he glanced over at his stuff and realized that there was no bag. "Dammit!" Haruhi giggled as the young man leapt up and began tearing apart his stuff as he searched for the missing bag with the celebration bubbly. "Dammit!" He cursed again after he had pulled everything out of his bag and was now sitting in the wreckage of the contents of his formerly organized suitcase. "Guess I will go downstairs and buy a bottle then, a couple can't get engaged and not drink to it."

She looked over at him with a slight smile before she stood up and offered him a hand, "While you do that I suppose I can clean up." As she leaned back and put all her weight in her heels, Hikaru leaned forward and stood up with Haruhi's help. Grabbing a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, and her hairbrush, Haruhi turned around with a slight smile as Hikaru shrugged off his jacket. "Did you remember your toothbrush?"

Hikaru turned to look at his fiancé with a look of surprise before turning to look at his belongings spaced out in a circle on the floor, "Dammit!"

**Not a cliffhanger, and I promise to update sooner. Hope you like it, sorry it was quick and please read and review! **


	11. Crocodile Tears

Chapter 11: Crocodile Tears

Hikaru left about a minute after that, but he took a full inventory of his things first, the result of which was his realization that he had conditioner but no shampoo, a bottle of his shaving cream but no razor, along with the missing toothbrush (toothpaste he somehow had though) and the lack of the bottle of champagne. Once he had finally made it out the door, Haruhi smiled to herself and allowed herself a chuckle at his antics before she headed to the bathroom to "powder her nose" as Hikaru's mom would fashionably put it. Since she was the only one in there, Haruhi left the door open as she twisted, turned, and shimmied the dress around her thin form until she was able to unzip the constricting garment.

Dropping the beautiful gown around her ankles, Haruhi reached for her sweatpants and pulled those on with a sigh of relief. Following the athletic wear came one of the t-shirts she'd purchased as a souvenir for her Dad all those years ago. Attempting to read the faded print's reflection in the mirror, Haruhi finally determined that the shirt was from Karuiazuwa. Memories from their last trip there filled her mind as she recalled the sobbing Misuzu when he saw the condition of his old friend Ranka.

_The girl with the pixie cut pushed her ailing father's chair forwards as her red-haired boyfriend got each and every door while all the while complaining that if they just got him a nurse, then Ranka would have better equipment than a squeaky wheelchair and the two of them as his bedside caretakers. "They have extensive medical training that neither of us have!" He argued as he straightened his tie and designer button down with the fancy logo he'd paid the big bucks for. _

"_Kyoya will help us if we need medical staff, he's fine with the two of us for the mean time." Haruhi argued hearing a scoff from Hikaru who believed that Kyoya wouldn't help unless there was money involved. Both were in a way right, Kyoya had originally only offered to help because he felt as though he owed Haruhi for the extra volunteer work she'd put into the Host club all those years ago and Kyoya did not like this feeling of owing anyone anything._

"_I'm right here you know." Ranka pointed out sullenly as he looked up at the arguing twenty year olds through his brown eyes sunken deep into their sockets. Rubbing a frail hand across his bald head, he sighed and picked up the wig that lay on his lap before placing it atop his head, "At least I can still look pretty." The sun illuminated the blue veins and red arteries that stood out noticeably against the pale skin that stretched thin across his frail bones when he placed his hands on either arm of the chair in order to brace himself as they crossed the final threshold and reached the room where his old friend and fellow drag queen was working. _

_Misuzu glanced up at the sound of the still bickering couple and caught sight of a dying man dolled up in a wig and sitting in a wheelchair being pushed in by the young woman who appeared to have already experienced too much loss in her mere twenty or so years. The living skeleton looked familiar but it wasn't until those dark brown eyes connected with his that Misuzu recognized the man for who he was, "Ranka!" Rushing towards his friend, Misuzu paused for a moment with tears brimming in his eyes as he wondered if it would break Ranka if he tried to hug him._

_Ranka tried to chuckle but ended up coughing as his breath caught in his throat and irritated his weakened lungs. Other than effectively ending Hikaru and Haruhi's argument, Ranka's coughing fit made Misuzu's face fall even more as he realized how broken his friend had become a matter of months since the initial diagnoses. "I'm not contagious, you can still give me a hug." As the two began to interact, Haruhi could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and threatening to make her cry. They all knew that Ranka's days were nearing their end but little did they all know that that was Ranka's last good day on this earth because he was stuck in bed for the next week or so before he slipped into the coma he never woke from. _

"Stupid tears." She scolded herself as she felt her eyes begin to tear up again and rubbed her hand under them insintictively which only served to smudge more of the dark make-up already aglomerated there. "At least I'm not a crocodile," the law student reconciled as she grabbed a handful of garishly colored and overly perfumed tissues their hotel supplied, "because then I'd cry all the time for no reason." Grabbing a make-up removing towelette from what Hikaru deemed "the commoners drugstore", Haruhi pulled herself up into a seated position on the counter and proceeded to rub away the smudges under her eyes, the gloss over her lips, and the remaining make-up on her eyes that had survived the tears.

Balling the towelette up, the twenty-two year old turned to hop off the counter but paused when she saw a movement in the corner of the room behind the grandiose dresser's shadow. "Is someone there?" She asked trying hard to keep her voice steady and not give herself away by the tremors. Not that she was scared or anything like that she was merely taken by surprise, Haruhi justified as she sat there steady as a statue and awaited a reply or subsequent movement. When none came after the span of what felt like an hour of terror but was probably a mere five minutes of normal time, Haruhi shrugged and slipped slowly off the counter until her toes met the deep rug and she allowed herself to slide all the way down so that her feet sunk up until her ankles when she stood. "I could get used to this." Haruhi said aloud with a grin as she recalled the hard cold tile floors of her old home or even the battered over-worn laminent of her college dorm.

With her fear now forgotten, Haruhi proceeded to brush her hair before walking back into the main part of their hotel room where she picked up her latest law textbook and began to thumb through the table of contents in order to reach the introduction. Normally she wouldn't even consider reading with Hikaru simply gone out of the room for a minute, mostly because he would steal her book away, but since he was downstairs being enthralled by commoner things, she figured that she had more time to kill than usual. She was only a few words into the first paragraph however when a cloth held by a large black gloved hand covered her mouth catching the scream in her throat. The hand on her mouth was familiar, familiar enough that Haruhi knew who it was within seconds but couldn't get enough air in to wrap her mind around it and react fast enough. So though she was struggling mightily, Haruhi was still out in seconds from the large dose of chloroform she couldn't help but breathe in.

"Sleep tight." A disembodied voice whispered as the book in her hands crashed to the floor and her chocolate brown eyes fluttered shut. Her last thought was of Hikaru, what if that person got him too? Before she could act on that though, her world turned upside down and everything went black as she was flung unwillingly into unconciousness.

…

When she awoke, Haruhi found herself with her legs and arms tied to her chair and the figure with their back turned, they looked like they were preparing a gag and couldn't tie the cloth right. As a result, she caught the sound of them cursing under their breath. Using this to her advantage, Haruhi began to scream as loud as she possibly could. "HIKARU!" Her voice carried, and she thanked God for that because if it hadn't, who knew if he would have heard and gotten himself caught in that person's clutches too. Ignoring the glare of the eyes as they turned around, Haruhi screamed his name once more before that person flung her and the chair onto the ground. Her whole side to burst into a firey pain as her shirt tore, her skin was scratched up and bruised, her rips cracked ominously as they connected with the arm rests on the chair, and she felt herself begin to slip into unconciousness again, "Stay safe you idiot and get this bastard." Haruhi managed to wheeze out as she heard Hikaru's responding yells and allowed the darkness to numb away the pain.

**And back to the cliffhanger endings! The next chapter should be up by tomorrow so no fear good reader, you won't have to wait as long this time. In the mean time please read and review, especially with any commentary on the portion in italics because it's kind of eh and I'd like to write better flashbacks if you ken. Thanks to those who have put in there imput, I am forever grateful. Again please read, enjoy, and review.**


	12. Adrenaline

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p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;" /spanspan style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;""HIKARU!" She screamed again and then fell silent which made him go even faster despite the breakneck pace he was already traveling at. Reaching their floor he skidded down the hall to finally trip over his own feet as he found himself at her door. Flying forward he crashed to the ground before jumping up and ignoring the packages flung every which way, the breaking of the glass bottle of bubbly, the ripped elbows on his silver shirt sleeves, the scuffs on his dress shoes, and the blood dripping from the scrapes on his hands. Adrenaline pumping he grasped the knob and wrenched it back and forth as if the harder he pulled would somehow make it unlock faster. Reaching in his pocket he grabbed the extra key Haruhi had given him before jamming it in the door, flinging it open and rushing inside./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;" /spanspan style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;""HARUHI!" His voice reverberated around the bedroom and he heard a voice muffled by something and then a thud followed by a gasp that sounded way too much like a female in pain, and who else could it be bust his Haruhi? Fists clenched he stepped in the direction of the voice before he saw a figure who was far too tall and muscularly built to be the girl with the shoulder length brown hair, chocolate brown eyes, lightly tan skin and petite body that made her head barely reach his shoulder. "Where's Haruhi?" Hikaru demanded as the figure laughed manically to themselves before staggering forward with the gait of a drunkard. "Tell me where she is or…" The threat died on his lips as the familiar figure stepped into the light from the door and he held back a gasp./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;" /spanspan style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;""Don't start using threats you can't carry out Hikaru." Kasanoda's hoarse voice slurred as he took his own boxing stance. Staring at the drunk martial arts expert whose eyes had turned black from wither rage or the fact that he had had way too much alcohol, Hikaru gulped before his tawny golden eyes hardened and he took his own stance. Swaying forward Kasanoda threw a punch at the red-haired twin who dodged it easily before stepping back and sending him flying backwards with a kick to the gut. Maybe this was going to be easier than he thought, this guy was /spanspan style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"only/spanspan style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;" a yakuza boss, big deal. Darting out of reach he ran around the drunk yakuza leader and sprinted to Kaoru's room as he searched for the girl with the shoulder length brown hair and chocolate eyes to save her from whatever damage Kasanoda had caused her./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;" /spanspan style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;""HARU-" He managed to yell before he was tackled from behind and sent catapulting to the floor by Kasanoda. A huge whoosh of air left his chest as the impact left him winded and one of his ribs cracked painfully from the weight of the muscular man throwing him down. Wheezing slightly he ignored the pain and wrenched his back in a bucking motion to unbalance The larger man before rolling out from under him and instead of fully out of the way, Hikaru found himself running smack dab into the wall beside him causing a shooting pain in his side and back from the motion and subsequent introduction of his fleshy body to the unyielding wall. Grunting he used the wall to drag himself up into a standing position. Ignoring the taste of blood in his mouth as he stood shakily, the finances guy placed a hand on his right side in an attempt to hold the bone closer and hold in the pain; that would teach him to think dealing with a yakuza boss could be "easy" no matter the amount of liquor coursing through said boss's veins. With a groan Kasanoda too stood up and shoved him back into the wall that had just helped him up. The crack of his skull as it connected with the wall made him wince but it felt far away thanks to the adrenaline serving better than an numbing medicine that Kyoya and his company could ever produce, Hikaru tried again to get up but found that his mortally fatigued and abused body wouldn't let him. Ignoring the panic that ensued at the idea of paralis, Hikaru allowed himself a wince before he concentrated all his energy on moved his leg with a jerk in order to trip the man in front of him forcing him to come down to the level Kasanoda had just demoted him down to. Grabbing the yakuza boss's collar, he forced Kasanoda to face him and saw the red eyes, messed up hair and the charastic scowl./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;" /spanspan style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"Glaring at him Hikaru held back slightly as he flung him at the wall with enough force to make him feel it and, in order to add insult to injury, managed to wheeze, "Teach you not to touch my fiancé you son if a bitch." That would have been the ending of things if this was a perfect fairy tale, but alas this was life and Hikaru would never be allowed to escape that easily. In accordance with Murphy's Law*, when he tried to again get to his feet! he instead found himself still on the floor following a tumble that resulted in a pile of limbs and pain. Then he made the worst mistake one could make in any fight with a questionably unconscious drunk yakuza boss, he turned his back towards Kassanoda momentarily to steady himself against the wall and, at the very least, drag himself to his knees before attempting to stand again. He was lucky enough to have managed to get halfway up before he was shoved down again, but thus time his ankle twisted the wrong way and even the adrenaline couldn't soothe that pain. Yelping in pain but still desperate to save Haruhi, he tried again to stand but was prevented by the fact that his leg collapsed whenever he tried to stand and face the yakuza leader with at least a bit of his manliness intact. /span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"If the boss had not made the mistake of getting too close to the hurt and desperate young man, Hikaru may well have lost his man-card that day, but instead Hikaru took full advantage of his mishap by sending an uppercut to the man's jaw sending him flying backwards into the wall with a thud and finally knocking him out. "Dammit, why is it so difficult to take one of you out!" Hikaru complained as he crawled over to make 110% sure that Kasanoda was truly down before pulling off his belt and using it to handcuff his hands, Kasanoda's belt to tie up his feet, and then leaned him against the wall knowing he was going to be out cold for at least an hour more and by then the police would be there to properly restrain him. /span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"Using the wall and his good leg he managed to get up, now that he didn't have the pressure of taking out the yakuza boss from preventing him from fully standing, and, by leaning heavily on the wall, he was able to limp his way to the next room where he found Haruhi lying in a knocked over chair with her hands cuffed too tight behind her back and her feet tied to the legs of said chair. Her head lolled forward as if she was unconscious and her old oversized yellow t-shirt was torn from the struggle revealing scratches and bruises all over her bare arm and shoulder on that side..She moaned when she heard foot steps and tried to lift her head at the sound of footsteps. "Hika?" The girl managed to gasp before her head fell forward again in pain./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;" /spanspan style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;""Haruhi!" He wheezed as he took a few steps away from the wall and collapsed as his bad ankle surrendered to the pain. Falling to the ground he crawled over to her side and began to untie the ropes with shaking hands, a throbbing skull and watery eyes. He managed to get one of the knots undone and turned towards the other as repeated to reassure himself as well as the tied up girl. "It's gonna be alright Haruhi." Untying her other leg he managed to use the chair arm to pull himself to his knees and with trembling hands set about to picking the handcuff's lock with the paper clip he kept in his pocket for pranks. Despite the cuffs swimming in front of his eyes from the pain causing the sharp shooting pains in his head, the cuffs finally crashed to the ground the girl fell forward and on to his hap. A pained noise escaped Hikaru's throat as he tumbled backwards and his head hit the floor causing him to see stars. /span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"Holding the girl close towards his chest as his body complained from the effort needed to sit up, Hikaru finally managed it and as soon as he could breathe, he started searching his pockets hurriedly for his phone in order to call the police and an ambulance, which meant Kyoya. Finally he found it and brought it to his ear with shaking scraped hands, dialing the number from memory because at this point he could barely focus at all and the edges of his vision had gone black. /span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;"span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;""Kyoya, need a 'bulence and police. Were attacked." Hikaru wheezed out and heard Kyoya begin to chuckle which made his head hurt worse. Why didn't he believe him? "My head hurts." /span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;"Falling backwards, Hikaru felt everything go dark and Haruhi's head thud against his chest. "Hikaru?" Kyoya asked sudden fear in his voice when he heard the thud and an extended lack of response that went far beyond Hikaru's prank period. "Hikaru?" Was the last thing Hikaru heard as the pain in his head exploded like a brilliant light that faded into the darkness of blissful unconcious. The sound of the phone hitting the phone made Kyoya panic, "Hikaru, where are you? How bad is it? Hikaru! HIKARU!"/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;" /p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;"strong*=Murphy's Law is the idea that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong/strong/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;" /p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;"strongThis must be a new record since this was less than a day between chapters. The next chapter will up ASAP but in the mean time please read, enjoy, and review!/strong/p 


	13. Wheelchair Wheelies

Chapter 13: Wheelchair Wheelies

She awoke in a white room, all alone, with a paper thin pillow beneath her head and scratchy sheets. If this was what fancy hotel rooms felt like the second night of your stay, Haruhi would be quite content to remain a poor "commoner". Funny, she never slept on her back and where was Hikaru? Rolling over, Haruhi's side exploded in pain and she cried out before rolling back on to her back and breathing heavily from the effort. "Damn that hurts!" She finally managed to wheeze out a good minute or two later.

The sound of a girlish chortle, made her turn her head too fast causing Haruhi to wince in pain. "Why of course it hurts, you've got broken ribs, a concussion, some whiplash, and a fine collection of bruises and minor cuts." The form of the nurse was soon standing above her and Haruhi looked up at her with her chocolate brown eyes dilated from the pain. "You're lucky he was there." She continued as she forked a thumb over towards where Hikaru was rolling around in a wheelchair as he waited to be allowed into Haruhi's room.

Of course Haruhi couldn't see this but nodded anyways as an hour's worth of a dose of sleeping medicine combined with a numbing agent slipped into her bloodstream via the IV needle inserted in her arm. "Lucky." The law student affirmed as her eyes fluttered and she drifted off to sleep.

Meanwhile Hikaru continued to pace in the only way he could in a wheelchair; rolling. "If you keep that up, you'll leave permanent ruts in front of her room." Kaoru pointed out as he flashed a smile that didn't meet his eyes before passing Hikaru a Styrofoam cup of the hospital's coffee. Normally they would be at one of Kyoya's private hospitals however due to their condition, Hikaru and Haruhi had ended up at the nearby public hospital which didn't have freshly ground coffee nor ceramic mugs.

Taking a quick sip, Hikaru spit it out and gagged. "That coffee is what death tastes like!" This caused him to cough which set a shooting pain through his side and he let out a yelp in response. Kaoru had the insight to snatch his coffee away so that he didn't spill it all over his new cast; the new cast that stretched up past his knee because, as it turned out, he had hurt more than just his ankle. A good portion of his leg contained fractures and one huge break that had to be reset.

"Could be worse," Murai observed as she sipped her own coffee without having such an adverse reaction. "Plus it's only because the pain medicine you're on is dulling your taste buds." As she added this she stepped closer to Kaoru and he, in turn, wrapped an arm around her waist.

Hikaru, now that he had regained control of his breathing, observed all this from behind one raised eyebrow. "So this is a new development." He observed, grateful for the distraction from his own fears and worries about his fiancé.

The couple looked at each other than Hikaru and they giggled like two school children knew a secret that the third one was oblivious to. "Well..." Kaoru began with a sheepish grin as Murai butted in unabashed in comparison to her blushing and embarrassed old friend.

"He kissed me at New Years and now we're dating. Nothing to be fretting over, I'll make sure to share him with his twin." She shrugged as Kaoru sighed; she was just as un-romantic as Haruhi was. Dammit, now all Hikaru could focus on was Haruhi! Rolling around Kaoru and his new girlfriend, he got as close to the glass as he could and saw his fiancé still sleeping and in her back. She never slept on her back, he recalled with a frown, perhaps she had a few broken ribs too?

While he was distracted by this, a familiar figure appeared beside him and pulled on Hikaru's jacket sleeve. Looking down, Hikaru nearly fell out of his wheelchair as his eyes took in the sight of the boy from the train. Rubbing his eyes, Hikaru wondered if he was still suffering from the effects of his concussion. Touching a bandaged hand to the single bandage around his forehead, Hikaru felt a throbbing pain but no confusion; guess he wasn't hallucinating then. "Hey again," the kid began with a grin and Hikaru gave an unwitting smile.

"Did your sister lose you again?" The wheelchair bound man asked and the boy chuckled causing his glasses to fall down to the end of his nose. Pushing them back up, he shook his head as he moved himself more fully into view and Hikaru caught sight of the bandage and sling covering what could only be a broken arm.

Looking up at him with those intelligent blue eyes behind his larger than life glasses, the boy moved his arm up so it was in full view of Hikaru's tawny golden eyes. "My friend and I got hurt while snowboarding. My adopted sister took a taxi to go tell his parents and his friend." Pausing to take in the full extent of Hikaru's injuries, the boy continued, "But you got it worse than us mister, with a concussion, broken leg, a few broken ribs, and scrapped up hands and all."

Rather than ask how he knew (Hikaru would have been more surprised had the kid not), Hikaru just nodded. "I'm sorry to hear that, hopefully you'll both feel better."

Nodding absent mindedly, the boy boosted himself up onto the wheel of Hikaru's chair in order to look into Haruhi's room. "Is that your girlfriend?" He inquired after hopping back down to the floor while being extremely careful not to knock around his arm.

"Fiancé now," Hikaru corrected with a smile and a nod. Scratching at his bandages in embarrassment, the Hitachiin twin looked down at his cloth covered hands as the boy beside him just smiled. "What?"

The boy's smile chose that moment to disappear as his blue eyes took on a far-away look that seemed far too old for him. "It just reminded me of Ran's friend, they would be really great together too." He pulled off his glasses, and rubbed them against his shirt front with his good arm, "'Cept he's never here and it makes her sad." Hikaru nodded understandingly, that's how he felt whenever Haruhi was away. Like now, with her familiar chuckle as she explained to this little guy that two people like that can have a long distance relationship and she herself completely missed out on the lack of romanticism in that. "But he promises to come home to her and that's all that matters, right mister?"

Hikaru, who had finally remembered the kid's name, ruffled his hair with a real grin that met his tawny golden eyes; Haruhi promised to stay with him and therefore wouldn't stop fighting to come out on top despite wee little hurdles like broken ribs, a bad concussion, some whiplash, and bruises and minor cuts stop her. "Exactly right Conan." The kid looked happy that he remembered and was wearing a smile that actually met his eyes, a real smile. "Now let's get you back to your friend's room, what's the number?"

"367." Conan replied, "Do you need a push?"

Shaking his head, Hikaru's face was transformed by an impulsive and mischievous filled smile. "How about you hop up here and we see how fast this thing can go?" The boy didn't have to be asked twice and with a bit of squirming to avoid Hikaru's cast and wrapped up ribs. Rolling forward, Conan yelped before laughing as the chair grew faster and faster with each push of Hikaru's arms. Panting from the exertion, Hikaru deftly turned the chair into the doorway of the room of a baseball cap-wearing darkly tanned teen with an Osaka-ben accent.

"Conan-kun? Is that you?" He asked from where he was sitting in a chair, his eyes were glued to the screen as a kendo championship took place. His leg too was wrapped up but not to the extent that Hikaru's was meaning that this teen could at least use the crutches propped up next to him against the wall.

Jumping down, Conan gave Hikaru a wave which the twenty-two year old returned with a grin of his own. "If you're ever in East Tokyo near the bay and have the time, be sure to stop by the Hitachiin Co. Fashion Studios. Mention that Hikaru Hitachiin sent you and you'll be let right in."

The boy nodded and shook Hikaru's hand, "I'll be sure to, Ran would love that. Thanks again mister." With a final grin, Hikaru wheeled backwards and gave a salute before exiting completely and rolling slowly back to Haruhi's room. His arms sure were tired but it was good to see that kid laugh, he reminded him to much of himself in that he looked like he didn't get a lot of time to be a kid.

Kaoru came running up to him as soon as Hikaru rounded the corner. "Hika!" He exclaimed nearly tackling his brother but pausing seconds before he would have leapt and unseated his wheelchair bound twin with the broken ribs. "You've got to come to Haruhi's room right now." His sense of urgency startled Hikaru and so did the tears pricking at the corners of Kaoru's tawny golden eyes.

Hikaru's stomach tried to drop down to his feet but it got caught on his cast instead. "Why? What's wrong?" Kaoru's answer sent his stomach back into his natural home and caused his heart to flutter with hope.

"She's awake."

**Sorry it took so long to update, I wanted to write this in the best way possibly and it still didn't turn out as well I would've liked. Thanks for the great reviews, I really appreciate them. Please read, enjoy, and review!**


	14. Lucky

Chapter 14: Lucky

"She's awake?" Hikaru managed shakily wanting to ensure that his brother wasn't playing the worst prank in history on him. Kaoru only had time to nod before Hikaru rolled past him with his fatigued arms pumping as hard as they could. Granted as "hard as they could" was walking pace for Kaoru who took pity on the exhausted-and-in-denial-of-his-injuries Hikaru and began pushing his twin brother at a run. Normally one of the two would have made a joke about this but neither did, both were too anxious to see their best friend, in Hikaru's case fiancé, now that she was awake. The wheelchair protested loudly as the wheels skidded from the aggressive speed that Kaoru had it going at. "Not so fast! Not so fast!" He protested and earned a snort of indignation from his twin as the pair turned into the room.

An abnormally quiet and soft voice greeted them, "Don't kill my fiancé before I've had a chance to thank him." Hikaru looked up with his tawny golden eyes wide with surprise and a smile gracing his lips. Haruhi tried to laugh in response but stopped when it caused a shooting pain to explode in her side. "Dammit that smarts!" She managed with a grimace and a slight wince.

Rolling until he was level with the propped up hospital bed, Hikaru grabbed Haruhi's hand and gave it a tight squeeze. "They've got morphine for that sweetheart." Normally she wouldn't have responded to such a nickname without a lot of criticism and a long explanation about how sexist it was but instead Haruhi just shook her head. Later on Hikaru would insist that it was because she was so grateful to him and Haruhi would insist that she was "just too damn tired to argue"; in a way, both were right.

"Why are you so low?" She asked earning a funny look from Hikaru; they really must have her on some strong pain meds.

Letting go of her hand and rolling backwards, Hikaru spun the chair either way before pointing to his leg. "For the next few weeks, I'm gonna be doing wheelies in this thing."

Squinting at him Haruhi gave up, closed her eyes, and leaned back heavily on the pillows as she sighed with resignation, "You're a blob. The only reason I can tell it's you is the orange blob where your hair should be." Hikaru felt his heart skip a beat at that, he was no more than a blob to her? But then he remembered, it was just the fact she lacked her glasses or contacts, obviously.

This was why they called it brutal honesty Hikaru thought to himself as he shook his head before turning to Kaoru only to find Murai there with Haruhi's extra pair of glasses. "I figured that she'd be needing these."

Taking the familiar dark frames, Hikaru shot his brother's girlfriend a grateful smile, "No kidding." Hikaru rolled forward and placed them in Haruhi's hand, "Try these on for size." As she placed them on her nose, she grinned as everything came into focus. "Better?" She nodded and her magnified eyes reminded him of Conan but the thought was gone within moments as she lifted a weak hand and moved it to the arm rest. Her fingers trembled and her skin was pallid as could be, her paleness scared him and so did the trembling, she was so weak.

Joggling the hospital bed controller on the arm rest, Haruhi moved her pained body into something that resembled more of a seated position than a leaning reclining one. "Thank you." Haruhi whispered and continued even as Hikaru attempted to interrupt, "Not just for the glasses, I know that was all Murai." Another pause as she collected her thoughts and caught her breath, "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, you saved me."

"But you are hurt; I wasn't fast enough to save you completely." Hikaru pointed out as he tried to roll closer but his wheelchair prevented him from doing so.

Haruhi shook her head weakly as she began to nod off again, "Lucky, I'm still lucky." Was all she was able to manage before falling asleep. As her eyes closed, she was transported back to her high school years.

_It was supposed to have been the best weekend of her life: close to exams, nearly having her debt paid off, and getting to participate in the cultural festival. Like clockwork and just in time to prove Murphy's Law, Éclair had arrived and rocked all their worlds by stealing Tamaki away from them. At the time, Haruhi's subconscious had already begun to recognize that maybe she liked Tamaki a little but she wouldn't even allow herself to think such a thought let alone articulate it aloud. Instead they all, including Haruhi, were depressed when Tamaki disappeared in the middle of the festival. They all had been even more startled when they caught sight of him and Éclair heading for the airport a few hours later. "Come on Haruhi!" Kaoru urged as he and Hikaru each took one of her hands and pulled her along with their green and blue coattails respectively bouncing behind them. _

_Haruhi followed soundlessly, she felt cold and empty inside and did not and could not seem to understand why. She didn't even notice when Kaoru let go and sprinted ahead while Hikaru pulled her back and slowed down the pace despite the fact that he looked terrified of being away from Kaoru even if it was just for a moment. Taking a deep breath to steady himself he began, "Are you okay Haruhi?" Concern brimmed in his tawny golden eyes as he searched her chocolate brown ones but only found emptiness there. "We'll bring him back, I promise." He continued and made note of the spark that appeared in her eyes, "We'll hurry up and save him." _

_Understanding filled Haruhi's features and Hikaru grinned at her before continuing to pull her along. He was more than well aware of how much Tamaki liked her and though he didn't understand why it made him want to punch the blonde idiot, he knew that he wanted to make Haruhi happy and if Tamaki was the way than he would go purchase a punching bag and deal with it for her sake. By now they had reached the ground floor and were standing right behind Kaoru who had been stopped by the police force that had formed in front of them and, as a result of this, prevented them from taking a car. Instinctively, Hikaru had pulled Haruhi behind him in an effort to protect her. This startled Haruhi completely out of her stupor, because she felt safe as she stood there with Hikaru's hand still on her arm and she smiled and whispered her thoughts aloud, "_How lucky I am after all_."_

**Sorry it took me so long to update, I knew what I wanted to write but lacked the creativity to do so. This chapter, as a result, is so-so, sorry for that as well. The next one will be up sooner, I swear. In the mean time, please read, enjoy, and review! **


	15. 10 Years Later

Chapter 15: 10 Years Later

"Sachiko!" Hikaru yelped as he walked in the door and nearly tripped over his six year old daughter who was lying in front of the door coloring a picture of their rather ticked off old cat Kyo who was perched atop the book shelves beside the door. Hopping onto his bad leg, Hikaru fell to the ground with a thud beside her and rolled over with a sheepish grin and a muttered, "I meant to do that."

The little girl looked over at her dad and grinned at him with her magnified tawny golden eyes sparkling behind her glasses. "Afternoon Daddy!" As she stood up, her dark brown bangs flopped over her glasses and she blew them back into place with a frown; Sachiko was so much like Haruhi. Leaning down to offer her dad a hand, Hikaru grabbed it and then pulled her back down onto his lap with one hand while the other snatched up her drawing. As he looked down at it in awe of his daughter's talent, he felt her twin brother leap up onto his shoulders and nearly kicked his sister in the face. "Careful Chirou!" Sachiko exclaimed using her brother's nickname as she crawled off Hikaru's lap and gave her twin a glare.

Sticking his tongue out at her, Kichirou pushed his glasses back up from where they'd fallen to the tip of his nose in his enthusiasm as he fired back, "Careful yourself Sachi!" Their identical tawny golden eyes glared at each other and Hikaru sighed; he and Kaoru had never fought as kids granted now they had separation issues but at least his parents never had to deal with the quarrels. Standing up with much effort and an unwilling wince, Hikaru limped over and stepped in between them giving each a pointed look that he'd never been capable of pre-kids.

Upon hearing the commotion, Sachiko and Kichirou's babysitter for the day appeared with his new son Hajime in his arms. "What'd I miss?"

"You're kidding me, right?" Hikaru fired back at his own twin who merely shrugged as he rocked back and forth to keep Hajime sleeping. Rolling his eyes at Kaoru, Hikaru turned to look back at his own kids who were glaring at each other around him. "Come on now, this is nothing to fight over. So Chirou you can apologize for nearly kicking Sachi and Sachi you can apologize for yelling at him. Got it?"

The pair sighed in unison in an overdramatic almost Tamaki-like manner causing Hikaru to silently reprimand himself for letting Tamaki babysit even for a day. Hikaru could clearly afford a babysitter however all their friends and family kept volunteering instead and since Haruhi argued that it helped their kids learn how to deal with people, Hikaru had agreed. He always agreed when it came to Haruhi in the then, in the now, and in the future when.

While he was focused on the twins and their mumbled apologies, a lithe, petite figure snuck in and placed her briefcase down as quietly as she could. Sneaking up behind him, she covered his eyes and whispered in her best attempt at a manly voice, "Guess who?"

"Mom!" Chirou and Sachiko shrieked in unison as they ran towards her and tackled her to the ground. At the sound of that, Hikaru turned around and smiled lovingly at Haruhi while Kaoru quietly began to take his leave. Though his twin's children loved their Uncle Kaoru, they needed some quality time with their parents now and again.

As Kaoru began the process of slipping away, Chirou and Sachiko proceeded to relate how terribly Hikaru was at punishing them while Hikaru blushed and muttered excuses. Glancing back at them, Kaoru grinned. Both Hikaru and Haruhi had had more than their fair share of trouble and the pair had earned this, a happy married life with the perfect jobs for them and ample time to spend with their beautiful twins.

That wasn't to say that their past was behind them, Hikaru had died his hair a dark ash color and still walked with a limp on a day to day basis while Haruhi hated to be left alone, especially in hotel rooms. On his bad days, Hikaru was forced to lean heavily on a cane just to get around; Kaoru's wife always made jokes about how he looked like this Dr. House character from an American television sitcom which always earned Murai Hitachiin a glare. Speaking of his wife, Kaoru turned back around and began to gather his things to leave pausing only to kiss Hajime on the top of his head before he lifted up the diaper bag and headed toward the front door. Hikaru, Haruhi, and Sachiko had already headed to the kitchen to deliberate where they were going to go to dinner tonight.

"Leaving already Uncle Kaoru?" Chirou asked with a slight tremor filling his young voice and his tawny golden eyes looking a little rounder than usual behind his glass frames. Kaoru nodded before looking back at his nephew and finally registering the fear in the boy's eyes. He used to be so good at picking up emotions that many of his instructors insisted he would make a better psychologist than a fashion designer. Despite their prodding, his family ties had won out and he had become the fashion designer his family had wanted him to be and truthfully he needed to be to become independent yet not become so totally cut off from his twin brother that he never saw him.

But let bygones be bygones, right now his nephew needed him so the past and his memories of it would just have to wait. "Yep, Hajime wants to see his mom." His nephew nodded because he understood yet Kaoru sighed noting that Chirou was like him in that he needed extra reassurance, especially the night before he started first grade. "But I need help getting everything to the car, if you don't mind."

Kichirou nodded happily, even at six years old he understood that that meant he was getting extra time to talk with his uncle. Kaoru again was brought into the past as he took in Chirou's thoughtful expression. His nephew was way too much like him because not only was Chirou the younger twin but he was also the thoughtful and more emotional one. Now don't misunderstand, because Chirou was like his parents in that he did have the same bountiful energy that Hikaru had as a child, not to mention Haruhi's intelligence and terrible eyesight; both twins had inherited that. "Uncle Kaoru?"

"Yes, Chirou." The still orange-haired man replied as the younger fellow interrupted his wandering thoughts. Their tawny golden eyes met and Chirou tore his eyes away in embarrassment. "Is something wrong?"

As his nephew starred at his sandaled feet, Kaoru stopped in his tracks in order to give the boy more time to think. After a step or two more, Chirou too stopped and whispered his question, "What if they don't like me?"

Out of all the questions that Kaoru had been expecting, this one had been at the top of the list, mostly because he had asked the very same one on the morning of his first day. Taking the last few steps forward, Kaoru opened the car door and carefully placed Hajime in his car seat and buckled him in, before getting down on one knee in front of his nephew. "Do you know what the name Kichirou means?" Chirou nodded but let his uncle answer his own question, "It means lucky son, and that makes you lucky, right?" The boy opened his mouth as if to argue but Kaoru continued talking which preventing him from doing so. "You also have two parents and a bunch of "uncles" who are extremely good at meeting people and making friends, right?"

"I suppose that you're right Uncle Kaoru." Chirou conceded but still looked more than a little frightened.

Placing a hand on Chirou's shoulder, Kaoru continued, "Do you want me to tell you what your dad told me?" His nephew nodded and Kaoru began reciting Hikaru's words from memory, "'It doesn't matter if they like you or not, I'll never leave you.' And I'm sure that Sachiko will never leave you either, right?" The six year old grinned at that as he glanced back at their house and where his twin sister was waiting. Uncle Kaoru was right, Chirou reasoned as he gave his uncle a hug before dashing back inside. Kaoru laughed as he drove away and Hikaru watched the interaction end between his twin brother and his own son from the window with a smile.

No matter how many years passed since the two became independent of each other, Hikaru and Kaoru remained deeply bonded to the point that it still caused a nervous twang of his heart strings whenever he saw him leaving because he was, in truth, still scared of being left alone. "Lost in thought, Hika?" Haruhi asked as she wrapped her arms around his middle and pressed her face into the back of his shirt. Breathing in his scent, Haruhi relaxed at the same time as Hikaru registered her embrace and leaned back into her. It was only because of her that he and Kaoru had separated at all and it was only thanks to her that he could still remain away from Kaoru.

"Just a bit. Bad day at work?" He continued and she sighed in response which translated to a yes. It was a case similar to theirs, with a break-in and an assault of both the man and woman she was representing. "Well it's over now, eh?" She nodded and he turned around to pull her into a hug. "Whatever it is, I will always be there to save you." Hikaru promised and Haruhi grinned at him as Sachiko and Kichirou ran in and they each picked up one of the twins in stride. Six years of being a parent created fast reflexes, especially for parents of twins.

Clutching her son close to her chest, Haruhi laughed happily causing Chirou to give her a funny look, "What's so funny Mom?"

Hikaru grinned at his wife and she smirked back at him before answering, "I'm just happy to be home with my favorite kids."

Sachiko raised an eyebrow from where she sat in Hikaru's arms, "We're your only kids!" She exclaimed with a disapproving look that turned into a giggle, no six year old could stay serious for too long. Haruhi had been able to but she was one of the few and that was only because her mother had died a few years before.

In response Hikaru pulled his wife into a hug squishing his twin children between them as he replied, "We're each other's home through thick and thin." Both Sachi and Chirou were fake gasping for air when their parent's pulled apart but despite their dramatics, they had matching grins on their faces and matching giggles when their father continued onto a lighter topic. "So what are we having for dinner again?"

**So this is the end of my tale, I hope you enjoyed it and will please read and review. If you want to have a story written, by all means leave a review and I will be your scribe. Arigatō and I hope that you enjoyed my tale.**


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